


A Hylian's Guide to Sourcery

by ChillifyVilify



Category: Divinity: Original Sin (Video Games), The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: (aka Godwoken), But here we go anyway, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Excessive Sourcery, Gods' Chosen, Kniles the Flenser is a complete psychopath, Novelization, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, as is a bunch of the rest of the Divine Order, everything is always on fire oh god, let's be honest these are the insane ramblings of some nerd with no redeeming qualities
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25649803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChillifyVilify/pseuds/ChillifyVilify
Summary: I've scoured the Lost Woods so many times, looking for what I'd lost. Whatever it was, it had torn this hole right in my core, that's gnawing me away from the inside out. I'll do anything to find why it's there and how to get rid of it. Of course, that only gets more complicated when the Voidwoken come for me. My name is Link, and I need a guide to Sourcery.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	1. Avarice

**Hi everyone! Welcome to the sneak peek of my next project! It’s not going to be out for a LONG time, but I just want to show you all a snippet of what’s to come. Ooh, this one’s gonna be** **_fun_ ** **. You guys asked for it, and here it is! Also, I’m gonna try doing this in first person. See how it goes.**

**DISCLAIMERS: See any other modern fic I’ve done. It’ll be there, I promise.**

_ Prologue _

I was nearing my wit’s end.

Frankly, the small part of me that remained sane was surprised as to why it had taken so long.

By this time, I’d combed through seemingly every square inch of that accursed forest, but there wasn’t a lick of anything close to familiar. I’d been on my own for a significant amount of time, searching everywhere for it. When the food grew scarce, I’d been forced to send Epona back to the Ranch. Whether it was Lon Lon or Romani Ranch, I didn’t know. The rust-colored filly was intelligent enough to find her way back to either, whichever was closer. The sane part of me would have liked to go back with her. To give up. To eke out a life there, and live out my childhood like Zelda intended. But for some reason, I just couldn’t. I’d lost too much when Navi left, seen too much in the future past, learned too much in Termina. I had to keep going.

I had to keep going before I could find a way back to Hyrule. Because I couldn’t bear to abandon it-- I had to stop that gnawing feeling at my very core. I was missing something-- something too important to overlook, yet I could never quite place what it really was.

At first I’d been searching for Navi, my beloved fairy companion. Why had she abandoned me? Why had she gone without a word? That was the part that I truly couldn’t wrap my head around; even now, I could come up with increasingly fantastical reasons for her to have left, each more improbable than the last, but none of them accounted for this singular wrinkle. I had loved her, and surely she had loved me as well, so why did she leave without a trace, without even trying to say goodbye? It was maddeningly vexing. I still hate it, but I could no longer find it within myself to continue the search. I’ve accepted that I’m not going to find Navi, so I made my peace with her, and moved on.

But there was still something… missing. She’d taken something from me when she left, and now that it was gone, I couldn’t rest until I filled that hole again. I had had it before I’d met Tatl and fell into Termina, but after that, it had suddenly gotten so much worse. What was I missing? Try as I might to think of something, it was like grasping at the ocean. No matter what I tried, every explanation I could muster slipped between my fingers.

The forest around me was gnarled, and I had to watch my step lest I twist my ankle on an exposed root. There was a faint wind coming from directly ahead of me, and there was more light than usual. That meant beach, that meant ocean.

That meant the edge of the Lost Woods. But by an ocean? None of the Kokiri had ever mentioned seeing such a body of water. I must have been further east than I thought. 

About an hour later, I exited the underbrush of the Lost Woods and was greeted by a beautiful view of dusk setting over the ocean. It must have been much more magnificent at sunrise, to be sure. I figured I might as well settle down for the night. I’d covered a lot of ground today. Plus, I had all the time in the world to find whatever it was that I had lost. It wasn’t like I could bring myself to do anything else. Right?

Right?

A quick blast of Din’s Fire ignited the loose sticks I’d spent time gathering together. My ears had been perked to find anything worth hunting, but the forest had been eerily silent. It was disconcerting, to say the least. The Lost Woods were always abuzz with the sounds of the wildlife. Maybe it was because I was by the ocean, whose waves drowned out the noises of the living things behind me. Maybe.

Having not found anything to cook, I opted to withdraw my most valuable treasure from my pack-- a whole apple, or at least the remains of one. I’d had to nibble on it several times to keep my energy and sate my stomach, especially now that Epona couldn’t help me. Today was a special occasion, though; he’d traveled through the entirety of the Lost Woods in a more or less straight line. Now I could just double back and eventually get to Hyrule. The Hylian wasn’t too concerned with getting lost; I had the blessing of the Great Deku Tree, he’d be fine.

Well, I  _ had _ had it before the Great Deku Tree died.

Nevertheless, I finished the apple in its entirety, and all I was left with was a handful of seeds. So I tossed them behind me, into the Lost Woods. Maybe they’d grow into a tree someday.

Probably not.

Already, the heavy force of sleep began to tug at my eyes. Delirious from hunger and tiredness, I doused the fire, crawled to a nearby tree trunk, and sat down against it. I closed one eye and partially shut the other, allowing it to go dun as I drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

**!0*0!**

There was the unmistakable sound of a leaf crinkling a few dozen meters away.

My ears twitched as I snapped awake, hastily scanning every square inch of visible space around me for the source of the noise. I saw nothing save the moon over the waves, gently lapping away at the shore. Was I mistaken? That couldn’t be. It had never been wrong before, so remained perfectly still for a few moments, but I heard nothing. Hesitantly, I drew my blade, silently, every nerve afire with adrenaline. Still, there was silence. As wrong as it felt, I must have just imagined it. I forced myself to relax, letting the tip of my blade hit the rough grass below me. Then I shifted, assuming a slightly different position that was slightly more comfortable against the scratchy bark of the tree trunk I was using to support myself.

No sooner had I closed my eyes than a loud cracking noise became apparent.

I burst to my feet in an instant, sword hilt in hand. Tired as I was, I could stay up the rest of the night if I really wanted. It looked to be about three-quarters of the way through the night; sunup would occur in just a few hours. Never was the night darker than it was now.

The woods were alive with the chirping of crickets, the ominous cacophony of something alien, the whispering of the wind, the distant creaking of some kind of ship, the--

Wait.

Ominous cacophony of something alien?

I latched onto the source of the noise, eyes straining to pierce the thick shroud of the darkness. There was  _ something _ there, something hungry.

Something intelligent.

Then I saw it. A massive grub thing, easily two-thirds my own size, dashed out of the gloom directly towards me. It was quite similar to the maggots that often appeared in rotting meat, even sharing the white coloring. The very sight of it was nauseating; this was a creature with a mind, a creature that was  _ hunting _ me, and it looked like this?

Two more creatures crawled out of the darkness. One was white, like the first one, but the other was a mottled red and black. They made small squeaking noises as they approached me, cutting through the night like a blade through flesh. My blade did cut through their flesh, leaving bloody gashes in the maggots’ skin. Interestingly, the red one seemed to bleed fire, leaving behind a surface of flames underneath it. The fire then promptly spread to the other maggots, igniting them. A quick slash ended their lives.

Unfortunately, there was no meat on the bones of the creatures, just raw and lumpy giblets that hardly looked appetizing. I was drawn from my reverie by the threatening skittering of something behind me. I whirled just in time to be greeted by a blue-shaded behemoth charging out of the dark straight towards me. It had the same sheen in its eyes as the maggots that betrayed its intellect, but it was much bigger. It was vaguely insectoid in shape, complete with six legs along a segmented body. Unlike an insect, its torso traveled upwards like a Lynel and ended in a massive many-eyed head, dominated by an enormous pair of mandibles jutting forth from its mouth. It snarled at me before rearing its face towards the sky and squawking. Was it calling reinforcements? Evidently not, as three heavy icicles fell out of the sky and made contact with my flesh, chilling me down to the bone. This thing was a  _ cryomancer _ ? Well, fire beat ice. I cast Din’s Fire, creating a puddle of water under my boots as the frigid monster burst into flames. It didn’t seem to like that very much, and it darted forwards to bite at me with its gargantuan, serrated teeth. I tried to dodge, but wasn’t quite fast enough, and received a gash along my forearm. I retaliated with a heavy, over-handed strike that successfully knocked the oversized bug onto its side. Before it could right itself, I brought my blade down over the monster’s head, piercing its skull and killing it instantly.

I looked every which way, scanning the darkness in front of me now that the current threat was dead. What  _ were _ those things? I heard nothing for a long time, but my frayed nerves wouldn’t let me relax until the toll of a bell permeated the space around me.

I whirled towards the ocean, where the ship was ringing. Oh right, the ship. I’d forgotten about it in the struggle. Maybe they could sail me back to Hyrule, or at least pity me enough to spare some food and clean water. The boat appeared to have just dropped its anchor-- odd, considering this appeared to be the middle of nowhere. Whose ship was this, anyway? Hyrule was landlocked, and didn’t possess much of a navy. Termina had the Great Bay and the Gerudo Pirates, but he’d been on those ships, and they didn’t look like the large vessel currently present. They probably wouldn’t cause me any threat, and if they did, I could just hold them off for long enough to get away.

I was awfully good at running away from things, after all.

**!0*0!**

A much smaller boat had hit the mainland, filled with a man and a woman dressed in red along with what looked to be a cross between a bloodhound and a terrier. They disembarked from their schooner and set foot on the mainland.

“Well then,” one of the people said. She was clearly human, what with the rounded ears and all. “Voidwoken here too?”

“Damn,” the other responded. “They’re everywhere.  _ It’s _ everywhere. There were no signs of them when we approached. Did you see any, Vel?”

“Can I help you?” I interjected.

Both the people and the dog jumped, evidently having not noticed my presence beforehand. “A child?” the man inquired.

“Sandor, that means there’s a settlement around here somewhere. We could ask them for any Voidwoken spottings,” the one named Vel responded.

“There’s no settlement for miles and miles,” I informed. “And if you value your life, you won’t search. These woods inexorably drain the life out of anyone who enters unwelcomed.”

The dog slowly approached me, sniffing at my hand and side inquisitively. He was muttering ‘Source’ under its breath. I could understand him and other animals of his ilk, like with the frogs that had once lived in Zora’s River, but I opted not to reveal that just yet.

“Well then, what are you doing here, if the trees kill people?”

“I’m welcome. You’re not.”

“Can we become welcome?” Vel asked tersely.

“No. You’re best off just going around the woods towards the other side. If you’re lucky, you’ll hit the Great Bay soon enough. Now, what’s your reason for coming here?”

They shared a glance. Their dog was incredibly close to me, practically licking my hand.

“I’m Sandor,” the man introduced, “and this is Vel. We’re Magisters of the Divine Order. Surely you’ve heard of it.”

“The what?”

“Different continent, Sandor,” Vel chastised. “We didn’t know about them until just a while ago, why would they know about us?”

“Right,” the male magister consented. “We’re looking for someplace without Source-- a type of magic that attracts Voidwoken, those dead beasts-- for us to go to. This was one of our best chances, but… well… actually, who killed these Voidwoken? Your father?”

“I don’t have parents,” I stated. “And I killed them.”

Vel blinked. “I… of course,” she eventually settled on, clearly not believing Link. The dog that was currently sniffing me began to yip and whine, scratching at its nose. “Now that we’re here, we would like to speak with the rest of the elven stead here--”

“Elves?” I stated quizzically. “What elves?”

“You… are an elf, right?”

“Er… no?”

“Our apologies,” Vel said. “We just thought… since you had the pointed ears and… never mind. Anyways, we’d--”

The dog suddenly snarled and began to bark maniacally, screaming “ _ Sourcerer! You nasty bad Sourcerer! Found Sourcerer! Sourcerer you!” _

I merely raised an eyebrow. I understood that the dog was going crazy, but I sure as hell wasn’t a ‘sorcerer’. I’d never seen these things before. Sandor and Vel sighed. “No wonder there are Voidwoken here,” the magister lamented. “Bruno’s never reacted quite that bad to anyone… you’ve got to be one hell of a Sourcerer. You’ve got to come with us.”

“What?” I demanded. “I’m no sorcerer! If I was a sorcerer, I’d know! And for that matter, what the hell  _ is _ a sorcerer?”

“Sourcerers are people that can use Source,” Sandor explained. “Their use of Source magic attracts the Voidwoken, which causes destruction and chaos. Bishop Alexander, our Godwoken and son of Lucian the Divine, has outlawed Source. All Sourcerers are to be brought to a place called Fort Joy, where they can be freed of Source. For the safety of the people. Vel, could you get a Source collar?”

“Sure,” the woman assented, moving back towards the boat.

They were going to take me away, I realized with a start. Away from the forest. Away from Navi. I couldn’t let them do that to me! “Never,” I said.

Sandor’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “Child, you must. Don’t make me do this the hard way.”

Hard way… that was a good idea.

I reached into my pouch and withdrew the Goron Mask. I wasted no time in slipping it onto my face, allowing its transformation magic to turn me into a Goron bearing Darmani’s countenance. “Over my dead body.”

Sandor quickly grew horrified before drawing a wand, crackling with electric energy, before firing a bolt of lightning directly at my Goron form. Unlike a physical attack, which would bounce off of a Goron’s stony exterior, the bolt succeeded in electrocuting me. I immediately seized up, literally shocked, but I continued to charge forwards, hoping that I could knock him away so I could focus on Vel and the dog. Sandor then made a complicated motion with his hands, and it began to rain. The water conducted the electricity currently shocking me, succeeding in paralyzing my disguised form for a time. Something began to tug at my face; I assumed it was Vel. It was hard to concentrate on anything except the electricity holding me in place and the dog gnawing at my shin. The mask came off with a flash, leaving me alone in my vulnerable Hylian child form.

By the Three, I hated that body.

Vel clamped something around my neck. It didn’t appear to do anything, but I could tell that some form of strange magic coursed through it. The magister woman then proceeded to pick me up like a burlap sack and haul me onto the boat, where I was promptly restrained with iron shackles. Sandor and Vel then clambered into the skipper and sailed off towards the larger vessel awaiting us.

“Siwan’s not going to like this,” Sandor muttered. “We barely have enough room on the boat as it is.”

“We have enough,” sge countered. “Besides, we can always come back to this place later. Maybe the rest of it doesn’t have as much Source.”

And so we sailed, away from Termina. Away from the forest.

Away from what I’d lost.

I wanted to scream.

**And the stage is set!**

**Review Please!**


	2. Desperation

**So, no reviews yet. Sad, but not unexpected. Divinity: Original Sin 2 doesn’t exactly have that big of a following, fanfic-wise. I’m still in the process of writing, but I don’t want to leave anyone hanging, so I’m going to upload a new chapter on the 1st of every month until I have it completed, which is when I’ll start doing weekly uploads.**

**Enormous shoutout to my beta, Seeking7!**

**Also, I’m moving the RRRP to the bottom of the chapter. So… there’s that.**

_ Chapter I _

_ Desperation _

The brig of the boat reeked of human suffering. It wasn’t as if I was allowed to leave; I had been unceremoniously shackled to the wall. Sandor and Vel had taken my pouch-- which contained everything I owned-- and gave it to some ‘Siwan’ lady as soon as they docked. She hadn’t been pleased with them, but locked me below decks anyway. She’d even taken my tunic and switched it out for a moth-eaten shirt and pants, emblazoned with a red eye. Lovely.

They had spent several hours interrogating me about everything I knew, and were highly skeptical that I actually didn’t know anything. In fairness, I’d spent an unusual amount of time outside of society, and that was probably what was throwing them off. Then they started asking me stranger questions, like who my family was, how I’d killed the Voidwoken, how old I was, and what race I was. To the first, I had never really met my family, as they’d died before I could meet them. To the second, I’d just kind of hit them with a sword until they stopped moving. To the third, I have no idea. Was I ten? Seventeen? Time travel was weird, to say the least, and I didn’t particularly feel like talking about it with people I’d just met, especially when they had put me behind bars. To the fourth, I told them several times that I was a Hylian, but they seemed to take my words with a grain of salt the size of the Great Deku Tree. 

I asked them for my pouch back, but they refused, as stalwart and immutable as steel. I then promptly opted to not answer any of their future questions. After spending Goddesses knew how long trying to squeeze me dry of any truths, they appeared to give up and retreated out of the area, saying something about an ‘Orivand’. Whoever that was, I would be very happy to greet them bladefirst.

There was no sound save the creaking and groaning of the oak floors and walls around me, the sloshing of water outside, and the footsteps of people on the deck above. Hesitantly, I allowed myself to rest, closing my eyes and relaxing my muscles. I deserved it, after the whole Voidwoken debacle of last night.

My dreams were awash with fear. Only in the darkness of sleep did my inner demons come out to haunt me. Ganondorf, Majora, and Navi always had their place there. They were the most common actors, whether they be heroes, villains, or merely bystanders. They were the three that never really let me rest. I never really remembered the dreams after the fact; each scene blended into the next seamlessly, leaving me with nothing but a vague sensation of terror and melancholy. Couldn’t anyone see how much I was hurting? Wait, of course they couldn’t. I had worn the mask of apathy for so long that I was almost wholly convinced it was normal.

I was roused from my slumber by the unmistakable sound of someone approaching. Had those Magisters come back to try probing me for information again? Probably. Reluctantly, I opened my eyes to greet this intruder.

It was a human woman, but that was where the similarities with Vel stopped. Her hair was long and crimson red, with a singular tuft of white by the brow. She was slightly more pale. Her eyes were the most peculiar shade of dark blue I had ever seen. She was dressed poorly, that being a threadbare shirt and pants, which seemed to be made of a similar stuff as my new garb. Could she be a Magister ploy to get me to let my guard down? Probably. Actually, no; she was wearing the same glowing collar that I had been outfitted with. Was she one of those ‘Sourcerers’ the Magisters kept yapping on about?

“Wonder what you did to get locked up like that,” she mused. She had a lovely voice. “Kill a Magister or something?”

“I have no idea, miss,” I stated. “Besides, you’re stuck wearing this collar too.”

She laughed, a melodious sound that somehow made me want more. “Really? I think it’s quite the fashion statement. Nothing quite screams ‘danger’ like Sourcerer nowadays.”

“That’s another thing I don’t get. I’m not a Sourcerer, but apparently I smell like one? Where I’m from, there’s no such thing as Source.”

She looked at me dubiously. Before she could say anything, a snorting sound emanated from a few paces to my right. A guard had apparently been watching over me the whole time, but he seemed to have fallen asleep out of what I can only assume to be sheer boredom. Only with this woman’s noise did he wake up.

“Is my shift over yet?” he asked sleepily, before registering that she wasn’t, in fact, a Magister. “You! Sourcerer! What are you doing down here? This is--”

“Siwan told me to wake you up. Your shift is over,” the redhead informed.

He seemed soothed. “Finally.” The Magister then departed the way she had come in.

A few seconds after he was gone, the woman turned to me again. “Anyways, where were we… oh well. I’m Lohse, and you are…”

“L-Link,” I replied.

“Pleasure,” she said, leaning on the lever that unlocked the cage I was currently sealed in. Predictably, it swung downwards, causing the door to the cage to unseal. Her eyes darkened for a fraction of a second before she began to blink vigorously, muttering something under her breath. Nothing seemed to happen. I didn’t speak.

“You… want out?” she asked suddenly. “That can’t be comfortable.”

“I think the Magisters would know if I suddenly appeared updeck,” I said. “Especially given that they don’t know what I am. They’d panic and put the whole ship on lockdown or something.”

Lohse raised an eyebrow. “‘What’ you are? Just because you’re an elf doesn’t mean nobody knows what an elf is. Lucian’s Deathfog didn’t kill  _ all  _ of them. Besides, the ship’s already on lockdown-- Sourcerers galore and all that.”

“Why does everyone keep thinking I’m an elf?! I’m not an elf!”

“So you’re a mutant of some kind?” she chuckled. Quite the jester, she was.

“The Magisters seem to think so,” I sighed. “But that’s… not true. They don’t seem to buy it, though. Just like how they don’t believe that I’m not a Sourcerer.”

“Well, good luck convincing the Divine Order that you’re a whatever-you-are,” she called, turning around and exiting the way she came. I made a note to remember what Lohse looked like. She seemed nice. Maybe I’d run into her again.

Some indeterminable amount of time passed. All things considered it was quite boring, with nobody to talk to. All that was there was the groaning of the ship and a low squeak of what I assumed was a rat scurrying through the walls. This unfortunate circumstance of being shackled to a wall was starting to become very uncomfortable, and I was beginning to regret not taking up Lohse on her offer.

A muted  _ boom _ shook me out of my doldrums, and then there was the unmistakable crackling of fire. I hastily opened my eyes, not remembering when I’d closed them, and saw that the very floor of the ship not fifty feet in front of me was wreathed in flames. A candle must have been knocked astray by the ship’s rocking and fallen into the copious amounts of oil lying on the floor. Actually, why  _ was _ there oil just on the floor? That couldn’t have been sanitary.

There was a strange  _ poof _ sound, and yet another woman appeared out of a puff of smoke. Unlike Lohse, she was distinctly older, with her features wizened and her hair white. She was wearing the same prisoner’s garb as me, but lacked that damned collar. Odd.

“Well now, little hero,” she greeted, in a voice that sounded like she was speaking through gravel. I froze as I processed the lady’s words. ‘Little Hero’? How could she know that? I’d never met this person in my entire life, and if I had, I would have surely remembered by that voice alone!

“H-how do you know who I am?” I dared to ask.

“The God King knows all,” she said cryptically. “And he comes to you with a promise.”

A promise? What I wanted wasn’t something that could just be… given. There was nothing I had to gain from such a covenant.

“Life eternal, a place of power in the new world order, or something of that ilk is the normal Covenant,” the woman explained. “But that doesn’t interest you, does it? No… you want to regain what you have lost. To fill the void within you. And the God King offers it. All you must do is Swear yourself to him, and you will be rewarded.”

My attention was completely grabbed. It sounded a little too good to be true. Nobody offered that for seemingly no cost at all. That being said, If what this person was offering was true, then I could finally be whole again. I could finally be happy again. It sounded so…  _ perfect _ . I was so entranced by it that I didn’t even process the screaming, muffled as it was by the upper decks, nor the crashing sound of wood splintering.

“What’s the catch?”

“All you have to do is obey the God King until the Covenant is fulfilled,” she explained. “But you’ll be seeing the God King very soon, Link. I swear it.”

And then she disappeared, instantaneously, as several enormous, ocean-blue tentacles pierced the hull around me. I screamed in surprise as frigid seawater began to pour into the brig, seeping through the room and pooling in my cell. Miraculously, my shackles had been freed from the wall by the blows, so I was able to sprint out of the cell and towards the upper decks.

I sprinted across what appeared to be an animal sty, although piles of meat and organs and bones were all that remained of the livestock there. Another tentacle lashed against the hull, smashing it open and spraying me with seawater. What the hell was pounding on the boat so fiercely?

Using all of my strength, I grasped at the highest hole I could reach, which was oozing seawater at a comparatively gentle rate, and pulled myself through. I was swept into a choppy ocean with no land in sight. It was raining pretty heavily, and I had to blink several times to clear away the water as it poured down on my already sopping skull. The sky was dark, and the boat was nearly torn to shreds; it was littered with holes in the hull and a massive conflagration was erupting on the upper decks. 

An enormous shadow darkened the waters all around me, and my eyes involuntarily shot up towards the weeping sky.. Looming above it all was the head of a massive kraken, mouth glowing a sinister light blue and littered with hundreds upon hundreds of wicked-sharp teeth. Lifeboat. I had to find a lifeboat if I wanted to live. That meant I had to get to the top of the galley that was currently being ripped apart. But it was either that, or be drowned after several hours isolated at sea. Dutifully, I began to swim around the soon-to-be wreckage, hoping to find some kind of ladder up to the main deck.

I didn’t get very far, as something coiled around my leg. Before I could so much as scream, I was yanked out of the water by my foot and hung upside-down in front of the kraken’s face. It let loose a primordial roar, and a bolt of true fear surged through my every vein. Before I could fight back, or do anything to save my life, the gargantuan mouth lurched forwards and clamped shut around me. Dazed, I processed that I wasn’t dead. Why? How?

The mouth began to fill with a strangely luminescent smoke cloud, which crackled with some kind of energy that I was unfamiliar with. I stubbornly held my breath, but the gas crammed itself into my nostrils and downwards into my body. I quickly lost all sense of groundedness as my vision faded to black, and I remembered no more.

  
  


**!0*0!**

I awoke in a very strange place. The floor beneath me, and the odd hexagonal raised platforms all around me, seemed to be made of some form of cold stone. It glowed with a faint blue light between its cracks, which seemed to originate from several cyan crystals that littered the place. They, too, rippled with that unnatural blue light. The horizon didn’t seem to exist, instead stretching to infinity in a bluish-gray fog, not unlike that one room in the Water Temple where I’d fought Dark Link, the evil incarnation of myself or something. It was cold, almost uncomfortably so, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to shiver. I was, however, discomforted. Wasn’t I supposed to be inside of a kraken’s stomach? This was weird.

There were alien beings all around me, colored the same shade as the hexagonal flooring for the most part. Their flesh was etched in nearly impossible geometries, but they ranged from the small grubs like those I had fought by the Lost Woods to eldritch nightmares that I couldn’t hope to describe accurately.

Then there was… the other one. Unlike the beasts, it stood bipedally, and possessed an unnaturally thin and svelte figure. It had skeletal arms, but where its shoulders normally would be, it also possessed four bat-like wing structures almost as tall as it was. As for what it was supposed to be, I was unsure. What I was absolutely certain of was the etched, glowing skull it possessed, bearing the ghastly visage of Death itself.

“Welcome to the Void, Link,” it stated in a strangely soothing voice. “I have been expecting you.”

“What is this place? Who are you? And what do you want from me?” I asked, each word placed as carefully as a chess piece.

“I am the God King. And this,” it said, gesturing to the space around it, “is my prison. The Void between dimensions. And what I want… is to make a  _ deal _ with you. I know what you desire most. And I can offer it to you-- if you aid me first.”

Well, it was spouting the same sort of stuff that the boat lady was saying. “I don’t believe you,” I breathed. “Nobody can give me what I want… it’s not a thing that can be gi--”

“I would beg to differ, little hero.” And the God King leaned forwards, and touched a skeletal finger to the brow of my head.

I felt… strangely different. I couldn’t feel that gnawing hole that had resided in the pit of my stomach. It was euphoric. I wanted more. I  _ needed  _ more. The God King removed his finger, and then it was back, tearing away that sense of fullness that I had just gotten used to. And just like that, the pain returned. I groaned in need despite myself. I was desperate.

“Please,” I begged. “I… I need it. I’m sorry for doubting you. I’ll do anything!”

Death’s eyes softened. “All you must do is Swear yourself to me. Make a… specialized Covenant. I sense you’re not interested in eternal life.”

I nodded. “How do I do that?”

“Consider it done,” the God said, snapping his skeletal fingers with an air of absolute finality. “Sallow will make you a Mirror. It shall be linked to one kept on your person. I’ll send one of the Black Ring to bring it to you at Fort Joy. That is where you will wake up. He shall be named Nikor. You will know him when you see him. Best of fortunes, child.”

“Wait! How will I know what to do? I’ve never… been in this world before.”

“Yes. I will speak to you through your mind. I will tell you where you must go. Sallow will also give instructions through the Mirror. Does that suffice?”

“I-- yes, my lord,” I whispered, kneeling before my new God. A small part of me screamed in horror that I was abandoning Din, Nayru, and Farore. The rest of me didn’t care. The Golden Goddesses had never cared about me beyond a means to an end. But the God King, however frightening he may appear, had already shown that he could help me-- if I could help him first.

Death waved a hand, and I remembered no more.

**Ooh, plot hooks! What’s Link gotten himself into this time?**

**RRRP:**


	3. Hopelessness

**Welcome to Fort Joy, everyone!**

_ Chapter II _

_ Hopelessness _

I was very surprised when I awoke to the crackling sound of a gentle fire. Hadn’t I just been eaten by a kraken? Or was that just a fabrication of my delirious mind? Surely, that was the case. Otherwise, I would be very dead. And what of the God King? That, at least, had to be impossible.

I opened my eyes with a groan, nursing an incredibly acute headache. I registered a cloudless sky, which was a bright and vibrant blue. I was still wearing that damned prisoner’s garb, so at least the boat had been real. I was laying on some kind of bedroll, but it was partially covered in sand. It was scalding to the touch, which made sense, given that it looked to be about midday. I shook my head, trying to get my bearings. I sat up, breathing out. I spied the fire that had been creating the noise, and allowed my eyes to adjust to the light. Lying next to the fire was a shirtless old man, who looked very beat up. My gaze then trailed leftwards towards the abnormally short woman seeming to tend over that man. She appeared to be tying some kind of tourniquet around his arm. She threw a glance behind her, locked eyes with mine, then returned to her work. She then took a double take at my awakened state, seemingly having not processed it the first time around.

“Praise Lucian,” she whispered in a kindly voice. “It’s near a miracle you’re not dead. The Seven  _ know _ how long you spent in the sea.”

“Wh--” I got out, throat dry and cracked. “Who’s Lucian?”

She looked pensive, if a bit concerned. “Long enough to still be out of sorts. You rest, now. If the Gods are good, you’ll be back up on your feet sooner rather than later.”

My vision slowly faded back to black, as I slipped back into a slumbering state.

I wasn’t sure how long I was out for, but when I woke up again, I was being shaken awake. Violently.

“Get up, boy!” someone was demanding. Groggily, I jumped to my feet, thoroughly surprising the Magister patrolman who had roused me from my delirious rest. I regained my composure very quickly, however. “Where the hell’s your collar? How’d you get it off?”

Oh right, the collar. I felt around my neck, but didn’t feel any trace of the glowing blue apparatus that had once rested there. “My… collar?” I muttered, trying to feign ignorance. I glanced out of the corner of my eye towards what appeared to be a wooden targe lying in the sand. “I… never got a collar.”

The Magister’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying. Badly, at that.”

Grab the shield. Kick some sand into his face. While he’s struggling, bash the shield into his pelvis. Use that time to put on the Zora Mask and make for the water.

_ Break his neck to cover your tracks _ .

Wait, where did that come from?

“Er…” a lilting, effeminate voice cut in. It sounded like the dwarf woman who I had seen when I woke up. “I found the lad facedown in the surf. No collar on him.”

The Magister paid her no mind. “You’re coming with me, elf boy,” he spat, snatching me by the scruff of my neck and yanking my exhausted body away from that wooden targe, slinging me over his shoulder like a burlap sack. “Orivand’ll fix that for ya.”

“No!” I cried desperately, twisting and struggling within the Magister guard’s iron grip. My efforts were fruitless. Whatever that ‘Orivand’ was going to do to me, I wanted no part in it. So, for what little it was worth, I twisted and fought with every scrap of energy my lithe form could muster. It was no use. Defeated, sweat oozing from my flustered flesh, I hung my head as the patrolman passed a guarded checkpoint deeper inside of Fort Joy proper and entered a massive oaken door, which slammed shut with a cacophonous  _ boom _ . It came with a profound sense of finality. This was Fort Joy.

The interior was lit with several mounted torches that lined the walls. Beneath each was a figure dressed in red. Something felt incredibly off about them. They stood too stil, too erect, too unnaturally. There were humans, Hylians-- although I presumed that they must have been ‘elves’-- dwarves, and even some kind of bipedal lizardfolk. All of them shared that selfsame blank expression. It was unnerving. With a start, I realized that their mouths were  _ stitched _ shut, with the same subtle fabric used to patch together torn cloth. Shivers coursed down my spine.

The guard ascended some stairs and opened a door, where daylight shone forth through the many open windows. Especially in comparison to the rest of the fort, the decoration of this area was quite opulent, especially considering the massive portrait of some regal-looking human that easily dwarfed me in height and width. I made a mental note of that person depicted in the painting. He seemed to have a special sort of importance.

The Magister passed through a set of doors, and they entered some kind of grand hall. It possessed a central depression that was overlooked by a pathway on all sides, although there were two flights of stairs leading down into the divot. Magisters flanked the area below and above, along with an elderly-looking Magister in distinctly white robes. Something told me that that was this  _ Orivand _ person. I was unceremoniously thrown down in the center of the divot, beneath Orivand and in between the two Magisters on either side. I got to my feet, getting my bearings. I wanted-- needed-- to get out of this place, but… I didn’t have Source. Apparently, this place was meant to get me cured of Source. Maybe this was for the best, actually. Maybe if I proved that I didn’t have any Source, they would let me go? That seemed logical.

_ No. _

That voice… was it even mine?

Orivand was saying something, but I wasn’t paying attention. My gaze had locked onto the quartet of masks hanging proudly on the wall. The Deku Mask, the Goron Mask, the Zora Mask, and even the Fierce Deity mask were just… there. Hadn’t they been taken off of me on the ship? And if they were here, where was the rest of my stuff? I looked about for my pouch, but didn’t see any sign of it. Had my masks been the only things that had been spared from the ship? I suppose so. Otherwise, they’d be here, right?

Right?

A quick bark from an adjacent Magister shook me out of my thoughts. I hastily racked over what I had pieced together from the conversation while only half-listening to it. Someone had asked me where my collar was. “I never got one,” I lied. It was partially true. I was never given a collar while on the island.

They clearly didn’t believe it. “You want to escape this place,” Orivand stated flatly. “To what end? To bring a Voidwoken assault straight to those you love? Don’t be ridiculous, child.”

“I mean, it doesn’t really matter, because I’m not a Sourcerer.”

The white Magister leaned over his little parapet, anger etched into his every feature. “Silence, whelp! I will have none of your untruths blaspheme this court!”

“You call me a blasphemer, when this  _ court _ is heresy incarnate!” I shouted, without thinking, only listening to the encouraging voice  _ that wasn’t mine  _ urging me on from the back of my head. I froze, processing exactly what I’d done, as the faces of the Magisters around me somehow became even more livid than they already were. They looked at each other, and came to some sort of silent agreement. I shifted my weight from foot to foot, alive with nervous energy.

“Perhaps, instead of being collared, you should merely be cured now,” Orivand said, uncomfortably quiet. “Well, it’s not much of a cure… hmm, how to explain it. With this wand--” he waggled a short wooden stick that was crackling with flaming energy-- “I can leech the Source from within you. You’ll no longer attract Voidwoken. Rivellon no longer need fear you.”

_ I’d like to see him try _ , God whispered.  _ You’re no Sourcerer. _

“All this talk! Why don’t I just show you?” he mused, before rearing back. His wand began to glow a sinister light blue-- a hallmark of Sourcery, I guessed-- before a cylindrical tendril of magical energy connected with my midsection. I didn’t feel anything at all, save a light wave of nausea. Honestly, I was expecting more. And then it was gone, as quickly as it had started.

Horror slowly dawned in the Magisters as they processed that I hadn’t become Source-purged. I crossed my arms confrontationally. “Can’t cure me of my Source if I don’t have any Source to begin with. Can I leave now?”

Orivand shook his head violently, as if rousing himself from a deep slumber. “Seize him!” the judge roared. “Get the Flenser to figure out what the hells he is! And send for Dallis immediately!”

And then I moved. I was  _ not _ leaving without the masks. I couldn’t. Otherwise, how could I prove that anything I had done was real? That I wasn’t just drowning in delusions?

Well, God knew. But God didn’t count.

Several figures in red pounced on me from all angles, and their superior weight stopped me in my tracks. I collapsed to the ground, very irksomely pinned. They pinned my arms behind my back and then clasped both of my wrists in what felt like a pair of handcuffs. Oh, what I wouldn’t give for a pocket knife right then!

_ Kill them all _ , God ordered.

_ And _ how _ do I do that? In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly in a state to retaliate! _

_ You will have your opportunity. Patience. _

I was  _ not _ in a position to be patient, not when I was being marched out of the Judgement Hall and back into Fort Joy. I threw one last glare over my shoulder towards Orivand as I was forcibly escorted out of the court, and froze. I wasn’t able to see it before because of the angle, but on the lectern in front of him was a pouch. It was  _ my _ pouch, with a signature blue shape jutting out of the top. The Ocarina of Time. It had survived the shipwreck? I needed it! I had to--

And the door slammed shut.

**!0*0!**

As the Magisters and I ventured deeper into Fort Joy, it began to smell more and more unnaturally metallic. It reeked of copious amounts of blood. I wrinkled my nose, pointedly avoiding the people with stitched mouths as I was paraded around a corner. It sounded of a bunch of dogs going ballistic, torches burning along the walls, and a sinister repeating dripping noise that sent shivers crawling down my spine. This place made me uncomfortable. I hated it. God didn’t confer.

We swiftly entered a relatively open area that seemed to be the epicenter of that acrid scent. The room featured a central walkway flanked by two ornate lowered areas. The rightmost one was covered in smoke, but the one on my left was full of blood and painful-looking, if fantastical, equipment whose purposes I couldn’t fathom. Every here and there was a small and dingy grate, each of which was populated by an inhumanly tall figure. As I was paraded past one of the cells, I got a better look, although in retrospect I really wish I hadn’t. The thing inside looked to be half ripped apart, with ivory patches of what I could only assume was bone sticking through red muscle and flesh. It didn’t appear to have any skin. Its mouth was full of wickedly sharp teeth, in several rows like a shark, and it possessed no eyesockets. The whole area was lit with several braziers scattered all across the room. They illuminated several tables, all of which were covered in bits of flesh, bone, and other organs. Several of the Stitchmouthed stood completely still at various points in the room, most of which were along the sides. The one lone Stitchmouthed in the center was seemingly being interrogated by some sort of Magister, who had two wicked daggers hanging on either side of his belt. He looked surprisingly young, this ‘Flenser’.

_ Kill him _ , God said.

The Flenser and the Magisters possessing me traded a few words. A quick glance confirmed that my captors were just as uncomfortable in this palace as I was, which was surprising. This was one of their compatriots or whatever, right?

Right?

“Well now, what’s this?” A soft and sinister voice whispered in my ear. Somehow, the dagger-wielding Magister had leapt to right behind him… without actually making any indication of moving. One second, he had been talking at the Stitchmouthed at the other end of the room, and the next second, his hot breath was causing goosebumps to cascade down my spine and lower neck.

“Orivand wants to know what the hell this one is. Got hit with a Purging Wand and  _ didn’t _ get turned into a Silent Monk. Disturbing.”

I assumed that the Stitchmouthed were these ‘Silent Monks’. On later consideration, I determined that this was a better name for these creatures.

_ Yes _ , God confirmed.

“Well, please, let me handle it,” he suggested in a dangerous calm. I was promptly all but thrown forwards towards him. Since my arms were still stuck behind my back, I unceremoniously faceplanted into the slick stone. Wait, no, that was blood. Great. I turned just in time to watch the Magisters that had brought me to this dank and dreary place march out the other way, a notable haste in their footsteps. I guess they were just as uncomfortable in this place as I was. I hardly blame them.

Eventually, I managed to get myself to my feet. For the umpteenth time, I cursed these shackles pinning my arms behind my back. No sooner than I had righted myself, his disturbingly flat and calm voice echoed in my mind.

“Well now, little elf. I am Kniles. Welcome to my playground. It’s where I do all of my… work,” the Magister explained. “Now, why don’t you tell me the secrets locked in your flesh?”

Something warm and wet travelled across my cheek. Was that… no, it couldn’t be… oh Goddesses, I’d just been  _ licked _ by a twenty-something year old man.

_ You will  _ not _ speak of them, _ God whispered angrily. Ah, yes. I’d forged a pact with the god of this world. I wasn’t in Hyrule anymore. I had to remember that.

“You don’t taste like an elf,” the sadist behind me whispered, placing his hands on my shoulders. “Nor a dwarf. Nor a human. What delicious lies do you hold, I wonder?”

I tried to wrench myself free of that accursed grasp. I failed; he was surprisingly strong considering how light his touch felt. I decided to take my mind off of it, and latched my attention onto the regal-looking statue that appeared completely incongruous with the nightmarish setting dominating the rest of the area.

_ Lucian the Divine _ , God seethed.  _ Champion of the seven traitors. Learning of his death was music to my ears. _

I didn’t know what to make of that.

I was directed a few paces to the left of the statue, sandwiched in between a human Silent Monk and one of those flesh golems locked in a nearby cage. The Silent Monk appeared agitated in a way that the ones outside didn’t. I supposed it made sense. It was hard not to be on edge in a place like this. It didn’t even take notice of me, instead facing forwards mindlessly. This was a person once, I realized with a chill. A Sourcerer, brought to Fort Joy to be ‘cured’, only for their very soul to be leached out of their body. Purged. That was horrifying.

_ Lucian’s dogs stoop low indeed. _ God offered nothing more on the subject. It was probably for the best. Actually, why was the God King babysitting me? I’d long decided that whatever weird out-of-body experience I had had in the Kraken’s mouth was real, the God King was real, and that I’d actually sworn myself to him. Well, there was the answer to that question.

Actually, was that such a bad thing? No, because it also meant that I could be… whole.

And that was the best damn news I’d heard in a hell of a long time.

“Now, where was I,” Kniles mused to the Monk. I’d almost forgotten about him in my internal monologue. Ugh. “Oh, but I’ve told you that so many times before, haven’t I? Silly me.”

His cooly insane gaze locked onto me. “Have I ever told  _ you _ that story? Of course not. Once upon a time, there was a little boy. One day, he began to act strangely. Then he disappeared without a trace. They found him in a locked room in a nearby sawmill, stone dead, littered with cuts. Like this.”

Quick as a flash, pain blossomed right at my left cheekbone. A warm fluid oozed down it towards my chin. In an outstretched hand was Kniles’ dagger, dripping with  _ my _ blood. In a move that shook me to my very core, he delicately ran his God-damned  _ tongue _ along the edge of the short blade, a disturbingly sensual expression of ecstasy visible on his face in the flickering flamelight as he let out a long, almost repressed sigh. He shuddered.

“Oh… so soft… so sweet…” he whispered in the most strangely threatening yet unthreatening manner I could possibly think of. I mentally reevaluated the situation. Maybe proving that I wasn’t a Sourcerer to the Magisters up top wasn’t the best idea at all. “That, of course, was so many years ago now. I can hardly remember the smell of his skin anymore.”

For seemingly the millionth time that day, shivers coursed along my spine. I was stuck inside of a death trap that purged people’s souls with a literal psychopath that gained some perverse pleasure from watching people suffer. God, why had I let myself be taken here?

_ You were weak. You  _ are _ weak. And you will continue to be weak until you free yourself of your pain. _

I caught onto the subtext pretty quickly. I would continue to be weak until I freed myself of my pain, and my innermost torment would be purged by the God King when I fulfilled the Covenant, when I freed him from his prison. I still wasn’t sure what that entailed, or why God was sealed there in the first place, but I wasn’t about to question it. It gave me the opportunity to finally heal my fractured soul without even sacrificing my morals. All I had to do was put in the leg work. Right?

Right?

“You aren’t getting tired of my stories, are you?” Kniles whisper-yelled, rapping his knuckles against my forehead. “Can you even hear me in there?”

I stumbled back, mostly in surprise as opposed to anything else, but that didn’t stop the mad Magister from becoming mad in the other sense. “Darling, darling, that won’t do,” he tsked. “That won’t do at  _ all _ .”

I was suddenly snatched up by the scruff of my neck for the umpteenth time. For the love of the Godde-- er, God, this was getting repetitive. I couldn’t do anything, because my hands were still cuffed behind my back. The world became a mass blur of colors and shapes, before rematerializing into the same chamber at the bottom of a short flight of stairs. I glanced quickly at the Lucian statue, realizing that I was in one of the divots at the bottom of the room. I was lying on something flat a few feet off the ground. I threw a few glances around and realized it was a blood-stained table. It was along the furthest wall and right next to a brazier, so I could watch pretty clearly as Kniles chained my feet to the bottom posts of the platform. To my credit, I struggled as much as I could, but I froze when the monster pointed his knife at me. This was a hill that I didn’t want to die fighting on.

“I always have wanted to try a lizard’s scar,” he said, leaning right next to my ear, his breath hot against it. “Intricate things, really. With but a song, I could control your very thoughts. I could pry open the secrets locked in your flesh, by but asking them. And you would be  _ helpless _ to disobey. I would dominate your very soul, and you’d have no choice but to submit.

“And that… sounds very,  _ very _ enticing.”

Something told me there was a double meaning laced into that somewhere. For the sake of my own lingering vestiges of innocence, I didn’t try to decipher it. Then again, I’d probably discover that double meaning sooner rather than later.

I’ll try to hold out for as long as possible anyway.

Kniles was holding his dagger out atop the brazier, for some reason. To heat the blade? Well, if he was going for a scar, then I supposed that would be prudent.

“Have I ever told you the story of the girl? Of course not. Once upon a time, there was a little girl. She lived in a place called Driftwood. One day, she began to act strangely. Then she disappeared without a trace. They found her knifed in her bed by… assailants unknown. I can’t even remember the taste any longer. Just that it was most strangely alluring… almost like yours. What’s your name, little mystery?”

“Ganondorf,” I spat.

Evidently, he saw through my bluff. “Oh, you’re not  _ hearing _ properly, my love. Mayhaps I should carve some  _ space  _ in your head!”

His dagger inched closer to my already bloody cheek, before it hovered just centimeters over my flesh. I bit down on my tongue, partially to avoid hurling several obscenities at this whackjob, partially to avoid screaming when the blade finally plunged downwards. I couldn’t really move my head, so I was surprised when the heat of the knife’s blade retreated.

“No, no, no, this is all wrong, darling,” Kniles whispered. “I need your name, but you won’t give it, you won’t… oh, what to do now… there’s nowhere for you to go, dearest, but there’s nothing for us to do…”

_ A slave’s scar, _ God boomed.  _ It is nothing compared to me. To you. So long as you are under my protection, the song will do  _ nothing _ to you. Have patience. Wait for the right moment and  _ kill  _ him. _

I nodded, trusting the voice that only I could hear. A man, however sadistic, was no match for a God. And God had already proved that he could free me of my pain. Surely, he had no reason to lie. Right?

Right?

The shackles at my feet retreated, and Kniles delicately yet fiercely extricated me from the table and tossed me behind an iron grate. I was now ten paces away from the table I had formerly been at. The floor was soaked in blood, and it was somehow even darker than the rest of the Flenser’s Playground. Joy.

“You stay in there until you tell me your name, dear one,” Kniles informed me. “For as long as it takes.”

The cell door slammed shut, with an air of absolute finality. I let out a breath that I didn’t realize I was holding until it was gone. I took stock of my surroundings. Unlike the rest of the playground, it was significantly more cave-ish, for some reason. Was the fort built into the side of a mountain? That would make it pretty defensible, now that I thought about it. The floor was slick with what I only assumed to be blood. I couldn’t see it too well, because it was so dark. The only light in the entire area was that from the brazier just outside the cage and flickers of sunlight bouncing through some kind of gated tunnel--

Wait a moment. Sunlight? That meant a way out. That meant-- freedom! I dashed up to the gate and bashed my shoulder into it several times. Unfortunately, the grate wouldn't budge, despite my best efforts. Oh, for the love of the Void…

“You won’t be able to get out that way…” an incredibly soft voice whispered. It was so quiet I had almost thought I’d imagined it. My ears twitched reflexively as I registered the sound, and I whirled to figure out where the words had come from. In the darkness, I had almost missed the other small child tucked into the darker recesses by the jagged further wall. She looked even younger than I was… physically, anyway. Now that I thought about it, how  _ had _ I missed her? The bright Source Collar she was wearing should have given her away. She must be a ‘Sourcerer’ or something. I couldn’t tell what race that she was in the darkness, so I assumed she was another human or something.

“You ever tried it?” I asked quietly.

She nodded mutely. How long had this child been here, anyway? I felt that I was already going crazy just from spending a few  _ minutes _ in this hellhole.

“I’m… Trice,” she said. “What’s your name?”

“Kniles wants it, so I’m not saying it.”

She winced at the sound of the madman’s name. Yup. I’m killing that fucker.

_ Good _ , God encouraged.

I strolled over to the furthest wall and laid back against it, not planning on saying anything more. I was surprised at just how  _ coarse _ the wall was. It must have been built into the side of a mountain, because it was jagged and sharp. It felt strong enough to cut through something.

Wait a minute.

I felt around for anything at about hand level, found an uncomfortable shard of stone jutting out of the wall, and began to rhythmically drag the cuffs along it. I could hear the satisfying scraping of metal on stone. If I went for long enough, maybe I could wear down the metal enough to free my hands.

Then I could kill him.

**That’s enough for this chapter, isn’t it?**

**RRRP:**

MarkOfThree (FF): I live indeed! Glad you’re invested!

James Birdsong (FF): Thanks!

FadedBlood (AO3): I did it with Undertale in Hopeless LOVE, and people seemed to like that. And yes, Link has gotten into some deep shit. You have no idea...


	4. Wariness

**Hooray for the next chapter!**

_ Chapter III _

_ Wary _

Ironic.

That was how the Flenser’s Playground smelled. It was a good word for it, really. According to God, this ‘Divine Order’ claimed to be ‘just’ and ‘benevolent’. And yet here, in the heart of a place literally called Fort Joy, was the acrid stench of blood and iron.

I hadn’t seen any shred of food nor drink in whatever amount of time that I’d been here. It was hard to tell to what capacity time was passing; the only indication that it hadn’t just frozen was the eerie moaning of the Silent Monks and Flesh Golems, the crackling of the fire, the scritch-scratch of my handcuffs grinding away against the stone, and the pattern of shadows filtering through the grate that heralded daylight. So close, yet so very far. 

Trice was afraid of me, at least at first. That seemed normal. It wasn’t unnatural to be afraid of things you don’t understand. That was how most people saw the Voidwoken. That was how most people saw God. So all I had to do was let the little girl understand that I wasn’t a threat to her, and she stopped. If only everything worked out that well.

My hands slipped as the stone finally cut through the steel that kept my hands behind my back. I brought my hands in front of me, sighing silently in relief as circulation came back to my digits again. With that out of the way, I promptly approached the grate and pulled at it as hard as I could, but my efforts were fruitless. Apparently, the barricade was sealed to the sewage drain specifically to prevent anything larger than a rat from slipping through. Damn. With that bid to escape dashed, I clasped my hands behind my back again. If Kniles took me out of this place, I could get the drop on him. Maybe take one of his daggers?

_ Good idea, _ God praised. A smile formed on my lips before I schooled my expression. But then, how to get out of here? 

_ Wait. Something approaches _ . I blinked, watching Kniles out of the corner of my eye as he chatted with a Silent Monk, like he always was. If God had to comment something unprovoked, it was surely very important. God was a pretty quiet fellow; he didn’t talk all that much. Maybe he was just busy helping other people like me. Well, not quite like me. Nobody was quite like me. Not after everything I’d been through.

_ Act. Make your move. Do whatever it is you’re going to do. Now _ .

I didn’t need to be told twice. “My name is Link,” I whispered, just loudly enough for the sound to be carried across the room. In a flash, Kniles was behind me, hot breath tickling the nape of my neck. I silently prayed that he didn’t notice that my shackles weren’t connected to each other.

“Thank you, darling,” he purred, proud as a cat that had caught a particularly meddlesome mouse. “You must be starving, dear. It’s been days… and as it turns out, I’m hungry too…”

I vaguely heard footsteps climbing a set of stairs. Was it more Magisters? Or… something else? Trice was cowering in a corner, as far away from the Flenser as she could get. I hardly blamed her. Who wouldn’t want to steer clear of a maniac like that?

We warped back to the chair, and Kniles drew a dagger. The footsteps were coming closer. Or were they? I couldn’t tell. I could barely hear them over the crackle of the brazier right next to me.

“Link… Link… Link…” Kniles repeated, deep in thought as he heated the knife over the raging fire. If I actually got a salamander scar or whatever it was, I’d be kind of mad at God for getting me into this situation.

Not for long, though. I needed him so badly. God was the only hope I had left to be… whole anymore. Right?

Right?

A new aroma entered my nostrils. It was heady, even compared to the bloody stench of the rest of the room. I looked drowsily to my side to see Kniles burning some kind of pinkish flower in the fire. I could practically see some weird gas pouring out of it as the plant ignited. Was this some kind of drug? I sure as hell wasn’t sticking around long enough to find out.

Quick as a flash, I sprang from the operating table and pounced on Kniles. I couldn’t let him use his daggers on me. The force of my surprise attack sent both of us toppling to the ground. I ended up on top of him, and I pinned the hand holding his dagger to the slick floor. Weapon. I needed a weapon if I wanted to not die here. I curled my free left hand into a fist and sent it careening into his face. He managed to whip his head around enough to dodge, but I was already pulling my hand back, feeling around his waist for where I knew another dagger lay. I soon discovered that I couldn’t find it by touch alone, so I looked down and realized that it had slipped out of its sheath onto the floor right next to me. Just as my fingers closed around the hilt, I looked up to see Kniles’ forehead slam into the bridge of my nose. I heard something crack as I reeled away, face-up on the ground just inches from a cage.

And then the crate’s gate exploded. Apparently, I had accidentally woken up the Flesh Golems by attacking Kniles. And they were angry.

The Flesh Golem right above me reared up, the talons on the ends of each of its fingers gleaming in the firelight before they arced down towards my face. I rolled away from the wall and narrowly avoided its first slash, but I wasn’t lucky enough to avoid a long, thin slice on my right arm. I hissed in pain as I put my feet under me, and I took a quick moment to assess the wound. It was an infection waiting to happen. I twirled the dagger in my grasp, a habit I hadn’t quite broken ever since the first time I’d handled the Kokiri Sword, all that time ago. I needed to kill Kniles if I even had a hope of getting out of here. The Flesh Golems were unprotected by armor of any kind, not to mention that were clearly unintelligent; for God’s sake, they weren’t even able to figure out how to open a gate without just destroying it. I decided that I could safely postpone killing the Golems for now, in favor of just attacking the Magister with everything I had.

A subtle movement in my peripheral vision was all that informed me of the spear that was about to be rammed through my midsection. Out of reflex, I moved my shield arm to block, but then I realized that I didn’t have a shield. I should have grabbed the targe before I’d been brought to the Judgement Hall up above. By then, it was too late to do anything about it.

The spear slammed into my torso, forcing the air out of my lungs as I processed who exactly was currently trying to murder me. I was shocked to realize that it was a dwarven Silent Monk, although I supposed it should have been obvious. Kniles used daggers, and the Flesh Golem didn’t have any weapons beyond their disease-riddled fingers. Miraculously, it hadn’t cut into my flesh, but I’d been bludgeoned hard enough by it to leave a nasty bruise.

Speaking of which, a blur of beige alerted me that the Flesh Golem had just flung itself at me. My body reacted faster than I could even process what was happening, and I slid just below the Flesh Golem. Its momentum carried it directly into the Silent Monk. I observed, half in horror and half in morbid fascination, as it clawed away at the Stitchmouthed with reckless abandon. Apparently, bloodlust was its only motivator. I had to focus. I glanced towards where Kniles was lying, only to find that he wasn’t there anymore. Oh God, where was the bastard?

My answer was given to me when a sharp pain entered the small of my back. With an annoyingly childlike scream, I sunk to my knees. I couldn’t tell how badly the backstab had cut through me, but I could tell that it was pretty bad. I’d live, but it still hurt like hell itself.

A needlepoint presented itself to my throat. I could feel Kniles’ body pressed into mine. My head came up to about the bottom of his ribs.

“Such spirit in you, darling…” he breathed in my ear. “Too much spirit… too much for your little body… There’s nowhere for you to go. It’s over.”

He didn’t realize that I had one of his daggers, I realized with a start. Otherwise, he’d be more wary of me. Otherwise, he wouldn’t say it’s over. But I had to press the advantage while I still had it.

Grasping the dagger, I sucked in a breath…

And I rammed it into the junction between his left leg and his pelvis.

Kniles let out something between a howl and a moan. For an instant, I felt his dagger slip away from my neck, and I wasted no time. I ducked between his legs and took a step back, masterfully extricating myself from his chokehold. Now that I was behind him, I wrapped around his torso, stepped on his feet, and leaned backwards with as much strength as I could muster, pulling his body down with me at great speeds.

Kniles collided neckfirst with the floor, and I heard a brutal crack as loud as Ganondorf’s Tower had been when it had finished imploding. A dagger clattered to the floor. I had to make sure he was dead. I couldn’t afford to let him stab me again. I hastily slipped out from underneath him, yanked the dagger out of his leg, and stabbed it as deep into his neck as it would go. The Magister let out a pathetic-sounding gurgle. So I twisted the knife in a little before yanking it out in a spray of blood. 

_ Good _ , God encouraged.

Satisfied that Kniles was either dead or dying, I turned my attention to everything else going on around me. The Flesh Golem that had been mauling the Silent Monk was just standing up, and I realized just how tall they were. The beast was at least two times my own height and then some. The dwarf underneath seemed very dead, given the holes all over her body and the copious amounts of blood pouring out of her. That blood was soon washed away by the sudden rainstorm that had spontaneously begun, right there in the enclosed room. How strange. I wasn’t exactly in a position to wonder; I was busy focusing on the two new spear-wielding Silent Monks-- both human men-- and the duo of Flesh Golems that were now climbing downwards into the basin I was currently stuck in. I knew I couldn’t take them head-on, so I opted to dash up a flight of stairs towards the edge of the room. Something hot whistled past my head, and there was the faint whoosh of something igniting. I ignored it. I had to focus on going upstairs There, I could at least be fighting uphill--

Then I tripped.

I fell through a steam cloud and slammed into the blood-water mixture sullying the floors. I looked at what I had stumbled over, and to my surprise, I saw none other than the charred corpse of a Flesh Golem. The stench of burning meat assailed my nose, and I staggered away. How had it died? Had a brazier been knocked over? That couldn’t be; not only was the fire untouched, but it was too far away to have ignited the Flesh Golem. I didn’t care. It was one less enemy to deal with. As I staggered back to my feet, I realized that both Flesh Golems that had once been bearing down on me were frozen solid somehow. When had that happened? How had that happened? Maybe it had to do with the inconspicuous hooded figure standing on an upper parapet who was currently flinging a rock full of oil at the congregated enemies. Yeah, it was probably them. The oil in the rock spilled out over the area, slowing the movements of everyone inside who wasn’t frozen. 

_ Tip that fire over, would you? _

I glanced at the burning brazier that God had indicated, then I looked down at the oil that this hooded figure had put down. That wasn’t a bad idea… knock the brazier down, and the oil would ignite. That would surely kill them all, right? I didn’t have anything better to do and it sounded like it would probably kill, so I sprinted up to the massive torch and shoved it onto its side. As predicted, it ignited the oil, but beyond lighting the Silent Monks on fire, all it really did was thaw out the ice freezing the Flesh Golems. They looked at me, and began to dart forwards at a speed that belied their size. I held my knife out in front of me, ready to try and cut them down, knowing full well that I had a disadvantage in reach and in strength. A dagger was more of a finesse-based weapon, and I’d never really used one before.

The Flesh Golems never reached me. A lightning bolt connected with the rightmost one, instantly frying it with electrical energy, and the other one was cut down by some woman with a pair of twin daggers. She was tall, just a head shorter than the Flesh Golems, and she possessed pointed ears, like a Hylian. I assumed she had to be one of these ‘elves’ everyone seemed to think I was. She had her black hair done up in a ponytail, allowing me to see perhaps her most defining feature-- an elaborate, twisting scar on her left cheek. At first, I wasn’t sure who she was; was it a Magister containing the threat down here, ready to subdue me immediately afterwards? Then I saw the Source Collar around her neck, and I was pacified.

_ Godwoken, _ God spat.  _ Here _ ?

_ Huh _ ?

The voice didn’t respond.

The Silent Monks didn’t last much longer after that; they were knocked flat on their face and then barbecued with a fireball. All was silent, at long last. I took a moment to catch my breath, wiping my brow with the neck of my threadbare shirt. I reminded myself to get new garb as soon as possible; this current getup not only looked awful, but it barely protected me from anything. Oh, what I wouldn’t have given for my tunic right then!

At last, the room was silent. Finally.

The elf woman seemed to be appraising me. She breathed in through her nose, and immediately shuddered. “Drudanae,” she drawled, glaring vehemently at the smoldering remains of the flower on Kniles’ person.

“‘Drudanae’?” I echoed. “Is that the flower?”

She nodded listlessly. “A hallucinogen.  _ Lizards _ use it to do their dream magic.”

“Like scars,” I breathed. “Kniles tried to give me one of those. I killed him first.”

Her features immediately softened, proving my assumption that she had a lizard’s scar as well. “You’re fortunate, then.”

“I assume you weren’t so lucky?”

She nodded, almost imperceptibly. “All it takes is one song from Master dearest to control my very thoughts. The bastard made me kill my own kin. Now, though… I hunt him.”

I grin at her. “What’s your name? I’m Link.”

“Sebille.”

“Well, I--”

_ Follow them. Join them. Remain close. _

“Who else is with you?” I asked, half-listening to God’s encouragement.

“Just two. There’s Lohse and Fane, up on the main platform. They’re looking for a face-ripper that Kniles supposedly has.”

_ Fane?! _ God stammered, flabbergasted.  _ For the love of the Void… _

_ What? Who’s Fane? _

God had nothing more to say on the subject, so I ignored it. “I met Lohse on the boat, actually,” I mentioned. “Seemed nice. But why do you need a ‘Face-ripper’?”

“For Fane. Something about crafting a mask,” Sebille informed. “He has the rather unfortunate condition of being undead, so it only makes sense, really.”

“I am  _ not _ Undead! I’m an Eternal! There’s a difference!” The hooded figure hollered from across the room, in a strangely sophisticated voice. “But yes, I would much rather have a Mask of the Shapeshifter than have you savages attack me!”

The assassin rolled her eyes before turning towards Kniles’ corpse, ruffling through his pockets and liberating anything of value. “Pass me that dagger, will you?”

I glanced downwards at the knife in my hands. I’d forgotten that I was holding it. “Oh, sure.”

“Who’re ya talking to, Seb?” Lohse’s lovely voice sounded from across the late Flenser’s playground.

“Someone named Link!” she yelled back. “Says he knows you from the ship!”

“Oh, Link! The little mutant boy! I remember you!” Her face popped up on top of the parapet. “How’d you end up here?”

Sebille gave me a strange look. “Aren’t you an elf?”

“No, I’m a Hylian. I’m not actually from… wherever we are,” I said. 

“Rivellon,” Fane supplied from somewhere else. 

“I’m from a different continent. No Source, either.”

The trio appeared stupefied. “No Source… That’s… impossible,” Fane commented, scribbling furiously in a notebook. He must have walked over to figure out what all the commotion was. I hardly blamed him. Who expected to find a small child in a place like this?

Well, God did. But God didn’t count.

“How’d you even end up here?” Lohse was asking.

“Where should I start? I’d rather not stay here any longer than I have to.”

“We’re not going anywhere.”

“Well, actually, given the motions of the planet, we’re definitely going somewhere, and at a blisteringly quick speed,” Fane mentioned offhand. “Oh, you’re talking relative to the floor. In that case, we certainly  _ should _ be going out of this damned fort as soon as possible. Magisters and all. Let’s have this conversation  _ elsewhere _ , where we’re less likely to be attacked.”

“I can only assume this is the Face-ripper,” Sebille said offhand, liberating some strange contraption with viciously sharp claws from Kniles’ cooling corpse.

“Ah, yes, lovely! With this, I can procure enough faces to craft a new Mask!”

I tried not to be sick as I imagined the macabre imagery of ripping a face off of a corpse, sending blood, muscle, and viscera everywhere. I squeezed my eyes shut before opening them again, the bout of nausea having passed. 

“We can’t leave just yet,” Lohse mentioned. “We have to get Lord Withermoore his Soul Jar!”

I blinked. “Get who now his what?”

The Godwoken gaggle ignored me. “Ah yes, we should do that, shouldn’t we…” Fane groaned. “Another thing to do before we can get off this accursed island and get onto more important things. Like my research in the Blackpits.”

“Don’t be such a downer, Bone Boy,” the enchantress laughed. “You’ll be fine. You have a literal eternity to get there. Come on, there’s probably a hatch on the other side. Good to see you’re alright, kid.”

_ Don’t let them go without you. _

I wasn’t planning on it anyway.

“Actually, um…” I started. 

They stopped.

“Can I come with you?”

They tossed me a spear and some chainmail in response.

**The party’s together, and I don’t know how to write any of them! For those of you who know Dos2 lingo, let me give you the rundown:**

Link: Fighter (strength-based weapon [i.e. sword, hammer, axe, etc] with shield maybe, but probably two-handed)

Sebille: Rogue (daggers)

Fane: Wizard (staff)

Lohse: Enchanter (Wand & shield)

**RRRP:** **  
** MarkOfThree _ (FF): _ Hey! And yes.


	5. Freedom?

**To adventure or whatever!**

**Also, I'm so sorry. I cracked. I did something that I swore I'd never do. Something... well...**

**I'm making a sequel to Hopeless LOVE.**

_ Chapter IV _

_ Freedom? _

“You said something about not being from the continent earlier?” Fane asked, a blue notebook and a pencil at the ready.

“Yes,” I nodded, not quite sure where this was going. I was so distracted that I narrowly avoided tripping on the random squirrel riding a skeleton cat that seemed to be following the Godwoken around.

From this angle, I could easily glance upwards at him, and I was surprised to find how not off-putting it was that below the cowl was nothing but bone. I had figured that all my experiences with Stalfos in Hyrule and Termina would have primed me to be terrified of him. However, knowing that Fane wasn’t dead-- just ancient and immortal-- somehow counteracted that. Apparently, he belonged to some eldritch race of superpeople that had spontaneously disappeared, like that was supposed to justify how much of a self-important knave he was.

Actually, maybe it was the fact that I’d met God. Yeah, it was probably that.

“So…” the Eternal elaborated.

I said nothing, merely opting to follow Lohse and Sebille down the cold hallways of Fort Joy. The Silent Monks that had lined the walls were dead now; evidently, the Godwoken had decided to ease their passings. It made my insides churn. They were still  _ people _ . Maybe they could have been saved.

_ Their souls had been purged by magic fouler than any Voidwoken’s,  _ God explained.  _ It was a mercy to kill them. _

“Have I offended you somehow?” Fane inquired, sounding genuinely curious. Now that I thought about it, it was very strange that the skeleton could speak like a mortal, what with not having a tongue at all. “Damnable mortal customs… Is it really such a big deal to ask about where you come from? I’m something of a scientist, you see. If there’s an entire race of peoples outside of Rivellon, I want to  _ know. _ Imagine it! The knowledge! And it could be a cornerstone in my research on the Seven lords!”

I wasn’t exactly comfortable with revealing everything about who I was. It was… just… insane, now that I really thought about it. Time travel? Being a hero? It was ridiculous! Nobody would believe that!

_ Skip it, then. _

That was a good idea.

“No, that’s not it. I’m just not sure of how to describe it myself,” I confessed. “It’s… very confusing.”

I didn’t miss how Lohse and Sebille also appeared to be listening in, very intently. I supposed it made sense. I was something of an enigma.

“I grew up in a forest. An enchanted one. It saps the life out of anything unwelcome, turning you into a Stalfos if you’re an adult-- a big skeleton with a sword-- or a Skull Kid if you’re a child, which is this mischievous wood midget… thing. It’s kind of hard to describe, and I only ever met a few. Anyways, the only reason I didn’t become one is because I had the blessing of my adoptive father, the Great Deku Tree.”

Fane was scribbling notes in a notebook, which I gathered was something he did a lot. “Like an Ancestor Tree?” Sebille asked.

“What’s an Ancestor Tree?”

“A tree infused with the spirit of an elven Scion,” she explained. “They were a pinnacle of elven culture. Pure grace in an undeserving world. Well, before Lucian used the Deathfog on the Black Ring, anyway.”

“Um…” I commented intelligently. “It’s… not really like that, I don’t think. The Great Deku Tree always was the way he was. Well, until he died anyways. I’m not quite sure how.”

That wasn’t a  _ complete  _ lie. I wasn’t absolutely sure if Ganondorf had cursed the Deku Tree directly, and that had attracted Gohma, or if Gohma was the curse that Ganondorf had sent. What I did know was that it was Ganondorf’s doing. I figured I could omit that, though.

“Anyways, the people who lived in the forest were called the Kokiri. They’re blessed with eternal childhood,” I continued. “I wasn’t a Kokiri, just a Hylian-- someone who’s from outside the forest, although there’s a few more races that I didn’t know about until recently-- raised with the Kokiri. Another thing about Kokiri is that they have a guardian fairy. I didn’t until I was like… ten, maybe. There wasn’t really a sense of time when I was there. My fairy’s name was Navi. I knew her for… I don’t even know how long. All I know is that one day, she just… disappeared. Without a word. So I left to search for her. Partly because she was a part of me, and when she left, she… took some of me with her, and I need that back. Mostly because I didn’t want to be ostracized again for not having her with me.

“So I searched the entirety of the forest-- the Lost Woods. I never found her. I don’t even know how long I looked. It must have been at least a year.”

Fane was physically incapable of making any facial expressions whatsoever-- what with only having a skull and all-- but Lohse and Sebille tossed a glance of pity my way. I hated it.

I cleared my throat. “Then I fell through a tree. Into what I could only assume to be some kind of alternate dimension.”

They blinked.

“Yeah. Weird, I know. I gave up on finding Navi after that. But then I had to find my way back to Hyrule-- that’s the country that the Lost Woods is in. So, I kept looking. I still haven’t found a way back yet. You can’t exactly fall up a tree.”

I laughed weakly. Fane made a snorting sound, but the ladies of the party didn’t react at all.

“Anyways, that’s where I met the Voidwoken. I was making camp, and they attacked me. I’m not a Sourcerer, but I guess I smell like Source to them and the dogs. I can’t imagine why. Hell, I don’t even know what Source  _ is _ , really.

“Then the Magisters found me, detained me, and locked me in the ship you guys were in. So… yeah. They tried to figure out what I was. I told them, in slightly kinder words, to throw themselves into the sea facefirst. That’s roughly when I met Lohse, actually. Behind bars.

“Anyways, the ship sank shortly after that. I… I’m not quite sure what happened. I hardly remember any of it.”

I had considered telling them about my meeting with God, but I thought better of it. Plus God didn’t seem to want me to tell them. I wondered why.

“We were attacked,” Lohse informed. “By a Voidwoken. Biggest one I’ve ever seen. Like a kraken.”

“I thought these bloody things were supposed to keep the Voidwoken at bay,” Sebille grumbled, tugging at her collar. I realized with a start that Lohse wasn’t wearing one anymore. She must have figured out a way to get it off. Lucky.

We reached a dead end. “Hang on, what’s this? I’ve found something,” Sebille called, turning towards a wall and pulling a hidden lever that I hadn’t even noticed. At the end of the hallway a few paces away from us, a large table slid backwards, revealing a hatch down which we could descend. Had the Magisters built this? Why?

“Likely amnesia,” Fane muttered, giving me a prognosis, I guess. “Any headaches? Nausea? Disorientation?”

“No,” I said.

Fane went back to writing. Scholar down to the bone, he was.

**!0*0!**

Sebille went down the hatch first, followed by Lohse, then Fane, then me. We entered a medium-sized hallway that was filled with some kind of sickeningly-shaded green gas.

“Toxins, looks like,” the elf noted.

“I’ll see if there’s anything generating it,” Fane mentioned, stepping straight into the poison cloud.

“I-- that’s poison!” I called out. I just met these people, I didn’t want any of them to get hurt.

The two Godwoken next to me stifled a chuckle. “He’s undead. He heals from poison,” Lohse explained, mirth evident in her eyes. Despite the fact that I was the butt of the joke, I couldn’t help but smile back.

“Not Undead!” Fane hollered. “Say, have you got any miscellaneous large items lying around?”

“I’ve got an old plate from the ship and a log.”

There was silence for a moment. “That should do!”

Seconds later, the toxic gases dissipated into the air. The way was clear. A plate and a log were standing on top of what appeared to be two traps set on the ground. They must have generated the fog.

Fane stood there, completely indifferent to the toxic clouds that had been there just seconds before. He waved us forwards, into a separate antechamber. Shrugging, we followed. The room appeared to have been abandoned for what looked like centuries, with an aesthetic not wholly unlike the Forest Temple in Hyrule-- crumbling walls, scattered debris, et cetera. Several sarcophagi littered an upper parapet, and there was a statue of a threatening-looking human watching over the room. But perhaps the strangest thing about the room was the five daises that were scattered all over the room. Each of them housed a vase, glowing with what I could only assume to be Source.

“This your place, Braccus?” Sebille said to the statue, obviously not expecting an answer.

“Who?”

“Braccus Rex,” she clarified. “The old Source King, from millenia ago. A complete megalomaniac that was slain by the Source Hunters-- the organization from which the Magisters were formed. Reaper’s Eye, the island on which Fort Joy is built, was the seat of his empire.”

“Oh,” I said, not really knowing how to respond. “Are all these the Soul Jars you guys were mentioning?”

“Yes and no,” Lohse called from across the room, looking at the plaques engraved on each dais. “Withermoore only had the one Soul Jar, but there are five. Four must be decoys.”

“Sounds about right,” Fane mentions. “So what do we do?”

“Process of elimination?” I suggested.

“Did Withermoore ever say his full title?” Lohse called. “There’s an inscription on these pedestals. ‘Sir Withermoore the Yellow-Bellied’, ‘Sir Withermoore the Wise’...”

Fane momentarily paused his note-taking to scan some of his other notes. “Not to my knowledge, no,” he said. “Perhaps the Hylian’s suggestion is the optimal path.”

“Works for me,” I said, nabbing the Soul Jar closest to me. It was on the right side, closest to the door. As soon as I touched it, it evaporated into mist, and the entire stone pedestal exploded in a maelstrom of frigid energy. I stumbled back, before slipping on the newfound ice that had formed below my feet and landing directly onto my posterior.

“Ow…” I groaned, half in pain and half in mortification.

“One down, four to go,” Sebille drawled.

Fane wasn’t even paying attention to the Soul Jars anymore. He was busy inspecting the statue of Brackets Wrecks or whatever his name was, eyes glowing a faint gold. I wondered what that was all about.

There was the sound of stone scraping against stone, then the clank of something metal hitting the ground. Fane made a curious sound. “Anyone need some leggings? I just yanked some out of the statue. Not quite sure what they are, though.”

Sebille immediately departed up a ladder towards where Fane was, an identifying glass sliding into her hand. There was a pause. I turned away, focusing on whatever Lohse was doing. I watched as she grabbed a Soul Jar, the one furthest into the chamber. It, too, evaporated into nothingness, but instead of exploding, the ground began to shake. I preemptively drew my spear as the stone beneath my feet began to split open. Three skeletons dragged themselves out of the ground-- a dwarf, a human, and a lizard. They wielded a bow, a greataxe, and a sword and shield, respectively. As soon as they saw us, they pounced. The human and lizard dove towards me and Lohse, while the dwarf scrambled up the ladder to get higher ground. The chilling, skeletal squeal that soon followed informed us that she hadn’t expected Sebille and Fane to be up there in the slightest.

The skeleton’s sword arced towards me. I was only worried because I didn’t have a sword and shield, myself, but just a spear. This was a melee weapon that I wasn’t very adept in using, but I could probably figure it out on the fly.

That’s how I learned most things, anyway.

The rains, probably due to Lohse, made the ground slick with water and wetted everyone in the area. I didn’t focus on it too much. I was busy trying and failing to parry the human skeleton’s blade with the shaft of my spear. Roaring, I slammed my spear into the ground, causing a small shockwave that knocked the human flat on his back. The Lizard skeleton was hit, but managed to resist being knocked down. Interestingly, I also managed to knock down the archer, who had spontaneously fallen directly on top of the swashbuckler just seconds before I knocked him down. Teleportation magic, probably.

I vaguely registered three icicles falling on top of the lizard, freezing it solid instantly. That one would be out of the fight for a few seconds, at least. However, I was busy worrying about the other two, who were just getting up again--

Sebille spontaneously appeared directly behind the archer, ramming a dagger straight into its spine. The undead’s back arched, dropping its bow as its body fell apart into a pile of bones. With all my strength, I clocked the Stalfos-- no, not a Stalfos. Stalfos don’t exist here. Anyways, I went all in on the Undead guardian, and its entire body turned into a pile of granite on the floor. I guess the spear had some earth enchantment on it or something.

I looked up to see that the lizard had just been burned to death by a fiery dagger spell courtesy of Fane. The place was silent again.

“The Tyrant’s Stride,” Fane mentioned, talking about the leggings he and Sebille had discovered earlier. “Originally belonging to Braccus Rex himself. Probably enchanted.”

“Give it to Link,” Lohse suggested. “No reason not to.”

The party seemed to agree with this, and a set of weathered mail pants materialized in my hands. It appeared to be encrusted with splatters of blood from a bygone age. But hey, they were powerful pants, and they’d do wonders to protect me. Probably. Shrugging, I tossed the pants on.

Immediately, I lost all feeling in my legs.

“I think it’s cursed!” I mentioned. I tried to move my legs, and I could, but nowhere near the speed without the armor. It was almost like standing in oil. That was too bad; it was nice armor and it offered good protection but I needed all the momentum I could get in a fight.

“That makes sense. There’s got to be a way to dispel the curse. We should hang onto it just in case.”

After changing back into my regular armor, we went back to trying to figure out which Soul Jar actually belonged to Withermoore. Conveniently, it turned out to be the very next one we tried.

The Jar was promptly smashed onto the floor, exploding into powder. I jumped, not expecting them to just do that without warning.

“Withermoore asked us to break the Jar,” they explained. “It’s the only thing that kept him from dying with dignity.”

I gathered that Withermoore had somehow been kept alive via the Soul Jar even beyond what was normally possible. One of Braces Reqs’s tortures, or whatever his name was. I supposed that made sense, so I dropped it.

There was nothing left to do in the chamber, so we departed the way we came. We clambered up the ladder leading back into Fort Joy proper. Sebille, who was at the top of the order, made us stop.

“Magisters,” she drawled. “Stay down.”

The rhythmic sounds of feet moving down the hallway could be heard. Were they checking on Kniles? If they saw that the Flenser was dead, they’d surely raise the alarm, and then we’d never escape.

And I still needed to get back all my stuff. Like my tunic. Like my sword. Like--

Oh God, the Ocarina of Time.

_ Oh God, the masks. _

I couldn’t leave yet. I had to get Orivand. I had to get the masks back. They were dangerous in the wrong hands. They were powerful. They were  _ people _ at the end of the day, and I always felt that there was a certain  _ life _ to them. I couldn’t afford to let the Magisters keep them. Especially something like the Fierce Deity.

_ You will get your things back in time,  _ God assured.  _ Follow the Godwoken. Unquestioningly. _

I trusted God. What other option did I have? Was I really supposed to allow this monster inside of me to consume me entirely? No, surely not. I’d be nothing but a husk of a person if I let that happen. All I wanted was to be… whole again. That was my most desperate of hopes, my happily ever after. I needed that.

And the way to wholeness was paved by God.

I could still feel it. At the pit of my soul, slowly clawing away at everything that made me… me. God had shown me what it could be like to not have that. It was euphoric. Addicting. Normal people got to  _ live _ with that? Surely, it was only right that I got to experience that all the time, too. If I had to make a Covenant with God to do it, then so be it.

**!0*0!**

We found the Magisters from earlier, debating with each other at a secluded dock. For half a second, I thought it was Sandor and Vel, but closer inspection proved that wrong. There was also a small child with a mop of beige hair nearby, looking particularly antsy. Odd. I vaguely wondered what they were doing, but my musings were cut short when they took note of us.

“What the flying hell-- Carin, you said this way was clear!”

“Th-that’s what the log said, sir! No-one’s authorized to be here!”

“Well, the log was wrong, you idiot!” He sighed. “I hope for your sake nobody will miss them.”

“Madame Zoor sent us, actually,” Lohse interjected.

He cocked his head, seemingly surprised at that. I vaguely wondered who this ‘Madame Zoor’ person was. Whatever. It didn’t matter. I could always ask about them later.

“That so? I can see that. You’re her type. Tell me: What does a beauty like you know about Zoor?”

Lohse thought for a moment. “There’s no nobler soul in all the realm.”

He seemed to be pacified. “That she surely is. That she surely is… Never was known for her patience, was she? If you’re taking this run, the kid’ll have to go with you. Feisty one, too. Liable to jump into the canal if you don’t keep an eye on him. That right, Han?”

The youth said nothing.

“He’ll be alright once he gets settled in. We won’t delay you. Carin ‘n’ I have guard duty coming up. At least we won’t be late this time, what with Dallis sniffin’ around for escapees. Good luck to ya!”

And they departed. Only the child remained. He stood back from us, steady eyes narrowed in a wary stare.

“Who are you?”

“Lohse.”

“I’m Han. So, Lohse. You helped me out there, so let me return the favor. You wanna get out of here? I’ve a boat here, with plenty of room. Let’s go.”

She shot a glance at her companions, myself included.

“Zaleskar awaits,” Sebille stated.

“Yes, can we get on with getting off this island? My research in the Blackpits needs to be completed,” Fane said.

“I mean, there’s a judge up there that took all my stuff,” I mentioned. “But I’m happy to go along with you guys. We can always just come back.”

The Sourcerers nodded. “Where exactly is this boat going?”

“There’s a place not far from here that’s safe enough for our kind. It’s out in the swamps. Ain’t a home, but you can breathe for a minute and figure out what to do next. Let’s go already.”

“How’d you end up here, anyway?”

“Came in to help someone escape but got nabbed before I could sneak out. I’d ask you the same question, but we’re a bit short on time here.”

“And… who were you looking for?” Fane interjected.

“Guy named Verdas. He was close to some people I know. I was… too late, though.”

The Godwoken adopted uncomfortable looks, evidently remembering something undesirable. “We saw what happened to your Verdas. Unpleasant, to say the least.”

Han nodded mutely, before waving us onto a small schooner.

“I’d thank the Divine, but… well…” Sebille grumbled.

God simmered in my mind. I ignored it. The sturdy raft bobbed in the canal’s gentle current, illuminated by some torchlight. We hopped in, and soon we were sailing out of Fort Joy.

I never wanted to go back there again. But I knew I’d have to. I couldn’t let the Magisters keep their paws on Darmani, Mikau, the Deku Scrub who’d never revealed his name, and… the Fierce Deity any longer than they could.

**!0*0!**

We returned to the island pretty soon after that, just a stone’s throw away from the fort itself. Apparently, we were too far from the mainland to dare to cross it without supplies. Plus, there were Voidwoken lurking in the deep-- like the kraken that had nearly killed us while we were coming here.

The sun was setting as the boat hit the shore, and we clambered out of the water and onto the surf. It would be night soon, and I didn’t want to be lost on a prison island in darkness like this. Who  _ knew _ what was lurking in there.

“We made it out,” Han narrated. “Good. Better get a move on to safety before anything spots us.”

“‘Anything’? Like what?” I dared to inquire.

“Beasts. Spectres. Bones. Even Voidwoken sometimes. Seen things in here I’ve never even read about in fairy tales. Even saw a winter dragon once!” the youth explained, like we were discussing the weather and not the various types of things that were trying to murder us. He gave us a searching look. “Trust’s more valuable than coin around here. You helped me, so I hope I’m making the right choice in trusting you.  _ You _ need a place to lay low for a while. I know a safe enough place. My friends there are all in pretty bad shape. But it’s safer than out here, that’s for sure.”

“And just  _ who _ are these friends of yours?” God, I hoped they weren’t just a bunch of kids.

“Oh, they’re Seekers,” Han explained, before pausing. “Don’t know what that really means, come to think of it. They’re nice, though. Magisters kicked ‘em something fierce, but they still gave me water and bread and shelter when I needed it.”

“Just what makes these swamps so bad, anyway?” Fane mused. “Maybe for mortals like you…”

“Badlands. Even Magisters stay away. Well, usually,” the child said, evidently not hearing the undead’s last biting remark. “They figure any Sourcerers who head in here are as good as dead. Most of the time, they aren’t wrong. Only one tiny nook is safe. Hand me your map and I’ll mark the way. If you make it, ring the bell outside. And tell Bahara I sent you. She’s… not quick to trust strangers. I’m headed there now. I suggest you do the same. Good luck. Really.”

And then he was gone, disappearing into the thick underbrush and tangle of vines like a squirrel.

Sebille took a deep breath. They’d escaped Fort Joy at last. “The walls we leave behind, and a wilderness awaits.” She laughed. “Just the way I like it.”

“Well, blessings be!” Fane rejoiced, sardonicism dripping off of his voice. “I am most grateful to have traded a sunny seaside for a dank swamp.”

“Out of the prison camp, into the bog,” Lohse sighed. “You watch my back, I’ll watch yours.”

I shrugged. “‘Certainty of death’? Impossibly small chance of success? Sounds like an average day for me. Just wish I had my ocarina…”

Lohse looked me over. “You play the ocarina?”

“Yeah, since I was little. Why, do you?”

She grinned devilishly, as the party began to approach the woods. “Not an ocarina, no. But I’ve been a performer all my life. A lutist. Once we get to this ‘safe haven’ Han was talking about, maybe I’ll play something for you. My friend Laslor lent me one back in the Joy.”

I nodded, listlessly, as we stepped into the thicket.

“The bansuri is better,” Fane commented, torching an irritating vine with a trio of magically created searing daggers. “Reminds me of my people.”

“Your people?” I repeated. “You’re not--” Oh right. God knew Fane, so it only made sense that Fane and God were of the same race. Hadn’t Fane said something about being primordial? I guess that explained it. But if so, then where were the others of his… species? Civilization? “Wait. No, you’re an Eternal superperson or whatever. If I could ask… what were they like?”

Fane’s eyes lit up, which was rather surprising given how he didn’t have any. “Ah, this is perhaps the first intelligent question you’ve asked! After all, one should always try to learn from their betters. Though I suppose your stint in the Joy was… undesirable. It is understandable, then, that your mind would be addled. You are forgiven.”

I bit my tongue to prevent a biting retort.  _ As pompous as ever, _ God commented.  _ He always was one for his ‘scholastic inquiries’. _ I just let the skeleton continue.

“My people are a race far beyond anything that exists in this world today. We seek to master the secrets of the universe. We craft wonders to last through the ages long after your tools have crumbled to nothing.”

“Well, then where are these ‘wonders’ now, if they were built to last so long?” I shot back. Deep inside, I already knew the answer.

“I-I… I do not know,” he conceded, voice tinged with melancholy. “There were rumors that some had been found at the Blackpits-- an oil field on Reaper’s Coast. I was trying to uncover the truth when I was waylaid by those Magisters. But wherever the artefacts of my people are, I will find them. We have not simply vanished into thin air. We have  _ not _ .”

‘ _ We have not’ indeed _ , God snorted.

“Ironic, then, that you’re so bored by history,” Lohse commented over her shoulder, brushing away a bush as we stepped onto what appeared to be a wooden bridge across knee-deep waters.

“Well, maybe your history. Your quote unquote ‘history’ is an interminably dull list of mortals that were born, achieved nothing of worth, and then died,” Fane stated, matter-of-factly. “Certainly one may have expanded their kingdom or invented a new method of pickling fish, but what does it matter? Where will your kingdoms be in a hundred years? A thousand? Dust, along with all your heroes and villains.”

“Then what _ is _ worth knowing?”

Fane responded by pulling up his sleeves, revealing nothing but a bony hand underneath, and scooping up some water from the marsh below. “Your peoples and nations come and go-- mayflies screaming their importance at a universe that cannot listen. But the universe is always there. The laws that govern your states change over the years, but the laws of the world?”

He tilted his hand, and the fetid liquid spilled back onto the ground. “Even when my people walked this land, spilt water still fell to the ground. And I have yet to hear of the mortal king that can decree all apples must fall up from their trees, or order fire to produce cold instead of heat. No,  _ these _ laws stretch into infinity. Understanding them lets you understand the world. That is knowledge worth having. Everything else is like arguing over who has the prettiest sand castle as the waves creep closer.”

At last, we entered the swamp, mosquitos swarming in the air just over our heads. It was hot and humid-- my least favorite kind of weather. At least in the cold, one could bundle up. A few seconds later, we approached a small bridge over a bog. There was a raised platform to the right, a sheer cliffside to the left with a statue on it, and a pathway that continued forwards. There was a lizard skeleton pawing at the ground, like it was trying to dig something up. A greataxe was slung over its back.

A dry cackle from the platform above cut through the deafening silence. Turning, I saw a rickety corpse staring down at us.

“So, there is still fresh meat slithering around this mire.” the skeleton mused with its echoing voice, already drawing a poison wand. “Our master will be pleased.”

“Braccus Rex is dead,” Sebille commented sarcastically, clearly trying to defuse the situation. “You hardly need to follow him anymore.”

The skeleton laughs, its ribs shaking and clacking.

“Do you think I missed the centuries passing? The beast may be as rotten as I, but his curses remained. At least, until our new master arrived.”

God. She was talking about God. Was  _ everyone _ sworn to this Covenant or something?

“Now we are free,” she said. “Now we serve a higher purpose. A glorious mission, and neither you nor your kind will stand in our way.”

Our friendly Stalfos interjected.”’Master’? What master do you speak of?”

“Oh simple mind!” The wizard chastised, like all of us were children. To be fair, in comparison to her, all of us-- with the exception of Fane-- really were like children to her. “My master has always been— it is we who came into being. He has given me life, and in return I must take yours.”

Immediately, the ground began to quake beneath our feet, as a sizeable puddle of oil pooled below us. Crags of stone jutted out of the earth and then exploded, but that was blocked by our armor. Sebille was already gone, vaulting directly behind the undead terramancer and stabbing down with daggers that formerly belonged to Kniles. Why did she get a ‘teleport behind you’ spell and I didn’t?

Lohse cast Rain, making everyone in the vicinity wet. Conveniently, it also revealed a third skeleton, who possessed a knife, which had somehow been invisible this whole time. So invisibility spells were also just a thing that I had to keep track of? Enough. I had to get into the action.

I practically threw myself at the nearest skeleton-- the lizard one. The water at my feet splashed against my legs as I pivoted, and I drove my spear into its ribcage. Hardly fazed, the skeleton stabbed forward with its knife and cut a deep gouge in my chest. My breastplate helped negate much of the damage, but the blow was enough to draw a little bit of blood.

Then the lizard suddenly appeared out of thin air directly on top of the rogue, harming both and allowing me to hit both of them with my next strike. Fane started to light them all on fire with a shockwave of flaming magic that conveniently ignored me and only hit our undead combatants. They burst into flames, which was only augmented by the poison bolt courtesy of the last undead up on the raised platform, which I had almost forgotten about. She looked a little worse for wear than before-- probably a side effect of being stabbed several times by an elven ex-assassin.

A greataxe arced directly towards my skull, and it was all I could do to avoid having my head caved in. I barely had any time to react, and I ended up scoring a nasty gash along my left arm. It hurt like hell itself. I narrowly resisted dropping the grip on my blade, but I was able to come back to myself just in time to catch the rogue running past me to get to presumably Lohse. So it hit him really hard. It was just enough to turn him into nothing more than a pile of bones, but now I had to worry about the lizard who was towering over me, axe above its head, beginning to swing down--

Thinking quickly, I tried to sweep its legs out from under its body. I failed, but I managed to throw the Stalfos wannabe off just enough so that its attack missed me by a hair. Reacting on instinct, I threw myself at the skeleton, and our combined weight caused both of us to fall to the ground. I found myself on top of it, and I drove my spear into its cranium. 

Again. 

And again. 

And again.

That turned out to be the last of them, as Sebille had already subjugated the decomposing terramancer up above. I clutched at my smarting arm, dropping my lance. Blood was oozing out of it, slower than I had feared but quicker than I would have liked. I grit my teeth, as the Godwoken picked through the remains of our aggressors, fishing out a nice hood for Fane and a belt.

“That doesn’t look good,” Lohse said to me.

“I’ve been through worse,” I replied softly. It was true. Fighting Ganondorf had nearly killed me on several occasions-- would have, had I not had fairies in bottles to keep me off of death’s door.

I’d sent them all away after Navi had left, though.

“Come on, let’s get you healed up,” she said, watery energy coalescing at her fingertips. Was this some sort of healing spell? It appeared to be; as I watched with awe and amazement, the jagged gash on my forearm literally began to stitch itself back together, flesh and sinew connecting with each other and leaving nothing but a faint white line where blood had flooded before.

I would never need a Red Potion again.

**I think that should wrap this chapter up!**

**RRRP:**

_MarkOfThree (FF):_ They really are the best!


	6. Restlessness

**OK, I’m going to level with you all. I’m hella stressed out by college and I’ve barely had any time to actually write. I’m currently about… a fourth of the way through Chapter 8, but I also wrote the epilogue and the most important thematic scene, which amounts to roughly two other chapters. I’m just… kinda not feeling it anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I still want to write HGtS. But… I guess it’s just writer’s block. So updates might slow down in a few months.**

**Yay for Chap 5!**

_ Chapter V _

_ Rest _

We left the ruins of those strange skeletons behind us. I threw a second glance at their remains and watched them carefully for a few seconds, just to make sure they didn’t reanimate. They remained nothing more than heaps of bone on the ground. I wasn’t quite sure why I was so suspicious of them. They were dead-- well, more dead than before. Were they cursed by Brakis Wrex, or whatever his name was? Given what Han had told us earlier, it seemed likely.

I tried not to think about it too much.

We doubled back a bit and hung left, climbing up a small hill towards a statue. When we approached, it began to glow a soft blue.

“Another Waypoint,” Fane commented, like this was completely normal.

“Another what?”

“Waypoint,” the skeleton repeated. “Teleporters. We could warp back to Fort Joy if we so pleased.”

Ooh. Maybe getting my stuff back from High Judge Orivand wouldn’t be such a big deal after all. Hopefully, Lohse and Sebille wouldn’t be indisposed to making that quick detour. Actually, wait. Couldn’t I use the Ocarina of Time to warp back to Hyrule? Maybe what I was looking for, that was creating this hole in my soul, was there all along.

_ There is nothing for you there, _ God immediately interjected.  _ Do not break your Covenant with me. _

Sounded like God didn’t want me to try. Did that mean it would work? How did God know if it was in Hyrule to begin with? What if it wasn’t? Why would I sacrifice a guaranteed salvation for a questionable one?

At the same time, I wasn’t particularly keen on being ordered around all the time. It reminded me too much of Tatl. It reminded me too much of Navi.

A pang of longing surged through my body, and I quickly stifled it. No, I couldn’t risk it. God had proven that he could free me. All I had to do was free him in return. What kind of hero would I be if I didn’t help those in need?

The marshlands seemed to end at the top of the hill we had ascended. On closer inspection, it was actually the ruins of what was once a grand bridge, spanning from a drawbridge over a river to deep in the swamps. The drawbridge was raised, and on the other side was the unmistakable cacophony of Fort Joy. At the other side of the broken bridge was a wheelbarrow loaded with boxes, presumably full of supplies. Standing next to the wheelbarrow was a tall, menacing figure, clad in full armor. His head was partially obscured, but below the visor of his helmet was a jaw of nothing but bone-- an undeniable marker of an Undead. His cart was loaded with dozens of items, mostly weaponry.

Lohse, who appeared to have taken the role of leader of our group, approached him, but Sebille caught her hand before she could say anything to the trader.

“I have a feeling the yonder creepy-crawly is the Lone Wolf I’ve been looking for. You wouldn’t mind if I asked a few pertinent questions, would you?”

“Alright,” the redhead consented, “but I expect him to be in a talk-worthy state when you’re done with him.”

She said it with a laugh, but all I registered was  _ Oh God, she killed someone for information. _

_ Elves are aught to do that, _ God explained.  _ They can taste memories in the flesh they consume. _

So elves could eat corpses and relive their memories when they were alive? Lucky. Imagine all the knowledge…

“I’ll do my very, very best,” the assassin drawled, as she stepped up to the skeleton.

The rest of us watched as she addressed the solitary figure. I heard nothing but whispers-- and hisses in return. This was about to get ugly, wasn’t it?

“What exactly does ‘talk-worthy state’ mean?” I dared to ask, already knowing the answer. Honestly, I just wanted to make conversation.

“The first person Sebille had a ‘chat’ with was a lizard by the name of Stingtail,” Fane said. “Well… he’s very dead now. Stabbed in the jugular with a needle after a very successful interrogation.”

I blinked. I had thought she had needed to kill the first case in order to access the information locked in Stingtail’s dead mind. By the sound of it, Sebille had already had the info she needed before she killed him. That was pretty messed up.

“In fairness, Stingtail gave her her slave’s scar in the first place,” Lohse added. “So she scarred him back. She wasn’t killing him for information, she killed him because of that. And because he couldn’t undo the scar for her.”

“Couldn’t, or wouldn’t?” I asked.

“Couldn’t,” she confirmed. “Maybe it wasn’t wholly justified, but nothing’s black and white. She’s just someone looking for real freedom, and I’ll support her all the way.”

“That makes sense,” I agreed. It was the same logic I had been using to justify siding with God.

Meanwhile, it looked like a fight was about to break out between Sebille and this ‘Zaleskar’ person. But just as I reached up for the hilt of my spear, the elf’s words seemed to sway him into submission. He says something under his breath that I can’t quite catch, visibly uncomfortable. She listens, face hard and pale. 

“ _ His name! _ ” I overheard her insist. 

“ _ Roost!” _ he croaked, and with that, the interrogation was over. She strolled back towards us, discomfort visible in her face.

“Come, let’s go. I have what I came for.”

“Seb, you look distraught. Are you alright?” Lohse asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

“I found out who abducted me; who delivered me to the Master,” she got out. Oh. That would explain it. No wonder. “I’m going to find the man who did that. Roost Anlon. And we’re going to get mightily reacquainted.”

And with that, we were off again. We went down the hill in the opposite direction that we had ascended it in, rediscovering a beach in the process. The air was surprisingly fresh here. It smelled of pollen, leaves, and blood. The blood came from the number of red robe wearing corpses that littered the area. Dead Magisters. Oh well.

A part of me was surprised just how apathetic I was towards the bodies. They were people. Then again, how could I not be? The ‘Divine Order’ had taken everything from me. Hell, they locked me up with Kniles. I was justifiably furious.

But…

_ The Divine Order is a farce. A sham. A lie hiding behind delusions of grandeur, _ God reminded me. And that was that.

A low, long wail drew me out of my thoughts, and my gaze snapped over to a miniscule peninsula just connected to the coast. A small fireplace was ablaze, but what really drew my attention was the thin, elderly woman hollering desperately, tracing glyphs in the air. We cringed, expecting a barrage of ice and fire. But all that appeared was the tiniest bit of smoke. She cried to the open skies in frustration in a recognizable rail-thin rasp. It was  _ her _ . The woman that had blown up the boat. The woman that had summoned the kraken.

The woman who had introduced me to God. If anyone would tell me what I actually wanted to know-- what God refused to tell me-- it would probably be her.

“That… that’s the woman who stole my mask!” Fane stammered. I was busy pushing past him. “Wait, what are you doing?”

“I need to have a chat with her,” I said, as pleadingly as I could. “It’ll only take a sec. Please?”

Lohse shrugged. “No reason not to.”

I nodded in thanks, before stepping behind the woman-- what was her name, actually? I had never figured that out.

_ Windego _ , God supplied.

Thanking the voice quietly, I tapped on her shoulder. She froze, then whirled towards me, twin wands crackling with flaming energy.

“You!” she snarled. “ _ You! _ ”

“Me,” I agreed, keeping my voice barely above a whisper. “You’re Sworn too, right? Tell me: why is God doing this? Why is He imprisoned in the Void? Who did this?”

“The Seven. Spineless traitors, all! That is all you need to know. The Godwoken will learn you the rest. That is all you need to know.”

She turned away from me. I tried to pester her for more information, but she was about half as forthcoming as Sheik-- er, Zelda-- had ever been. She just continued to do whatever she had been doing. Throwing up my hands in frustration, I stalked away, back towards the group.

“What was that about?” Sebille said.

“I wanted to know why she blew up the boat,” I lied, “but she was about as helpful as a green Rupee.”

“Let me,” Fane interrupted, pushing me aside. I glowered in response, but said nothing. Self-absorbed Stalfos lookalike…

“My Lord!” Windego howled into the empty air. “I’ve loved you. I’ve obeyed you! What’s my sin?! How long must I suffer?”

She turned and saw the Godwoken approaching her. She punched her fist in our direction. Her face flushed red.

“ _ You! You are my sin! _ ” she accused. Fane, being the closest to the Sworn woman, braced himself for whatever she could throw at us. There was no telling what this crazed lady would do.

“The judge has condemned your kind,” she continued, “and I smell the stench of your guilt with every Gods-damned breath you take!” 

The witch then turned towards the heavens once more. “I offer this sacrifice to you. Return me to your side. Make me whole!”

It occurred to me that she was talking to God. And we were the sacrifices. Great. Already, a fireball was sailing towards a point just between Fane and Sebille, creating a large circle of flames that managed to hit all of us. Fortunately, our armor prevented us from being ignited, but that wouldn’t last forever if we just stood here.

_ Kill her _ , God urged.

Wait, what? Wasn’t she on our side?

_ Windego failed her task. Besides, death is no obstacle to one such as us. _

Oh yeah. Having the Covenant gave you eternal life, supposedly. Well, for the normal pact, anyways. I had a specialized one, apparently.

My thoughts were interrupted by a rock full of oil colliding with the fire under my feet. As soon as the oil made contact with the flames, it ignited, starting a localized conflagration directly on top of me and Lohse. Sebille had already vacated the area, and was currently behind Windego and stabbing away. Fane had thrown the exact same oil-fire combo at her as she had to us, but it didn’t seem to be as effective. I guess she was just more resistant to heat than the rest of us.

Some strong rains doused the flames, which was undoubtedly Lohse’s work. Steam coalesced all around me, blocking my vision somewhat. I charged out, spearpoint-first, towards Windego. I attacked with a strong, sweeping blow, hoping to cripple her so that she couldn’t move as easily, but she just barely danced out of the way of my lance. Fortunately, she dodged directly into one of Sebille’s daggers, hard enough to draw blood. A poison dart left Fane’s fingers and slammed into her, causing another small explosion as the toxins reacted with the fire underneath our feet. The blast was small enough to have not affected me and Sebille, but Windego was still not on fire, which meant that her armor was still capable of blocking the magical attacks. 

That changed a split second later, when the flames at our feet actively engulfed her form. Speaking of fire, my garb was close to giving out. I’d rather not be standing in fire when it did. The witch tried to escape the fires by running past me, so I was able to land a solid attack with the sharp end of my lance. The spear must have been enchanted, because as soon as I made contact with her skin, it turned to stone. Curious. I’d never seen anything quite like it in Hyrule or Termina. That hadn’t happened with the skeletons in Withermoore’s Soul vault, though. I guess it only does it on rare occasions.

Now that Windego was petrified, it was comparatively very easy to finish the job. It was made even easier when Sebille tossed some sort of glass at the witch, which shattered on impact. The witch immediately fell asleep. Was that chloroform? Definitely.

She was done in by a blast of lightning magic from Lohse’s general direction. The Sworn woman seized up, switching between several electrocution-induced poses before falling to the ground, staunchly dead.

For now, anyway.

Fane’s flames petered out, ushering the tiny peninsula into darkness. Night had fallen a few minutes ago. Sebille was already leaning over Windego’s corpse, rummaging through her pockets in search of anything useful. A pair of heavy-looking boots was liberated, followed by a bloodstained wizard’s robe, and then came the strangest thing of all-- a helmet with four faces etched into each side. It was ornate, elaborate. It shone with a metallic blue sheen and luster, but it appeared to be made out of some kind of silver.

“Ah! My mask!” Fane exclaimed, immediately ripping off his hood and shoving the mask on. Blue light burst out of his form, and I was forced to shield my eyes to block that brilliance. When the light faded, standing in Fane’s place was a blue-scaled lizard. I hadn’t realized just how powerful this Mask of the Shapeshifter was, but even knowing that the lizard was still Fane, I knew I wouldn’t have ever suspected it. On closer inspection, his false flesh rippled with faint blue Sourcelight, but it was nearly impossible to pick out even with the fact that I knew it was there. “Not as beautiful as my true visage, but it’s better than being viewed as a monster.”

Lastly, a thickly bound yellow book was pulled from Windego’s body. It had a picture of a head superimposed over a wolf on it. The ex-slave opened the book and perused its context, eyes widening. The book then promptly exploded into a pile of… were those insects? Oh God, those were insects. Feathers, too.

“What was that?” I asked her, hesitantly.

“Skillbook,” she said. “Rare things. They teach you new skills. I think I’ve got one spare in here somewhere…”

“Neural modifications,” Fane elaborated, as Sebille dug around among her own belongings. “According to my knowledge, they scan your mind, then project how it would look if you learned a new skill. Then it makes those changes. Via magic, of course.”

“Interesting,” I mused, as Sebille procured a similar book and offered it to me. Unlike the other one, this one was red, and emblazoned with a crossed blade and axe. Cautiously, I opened the book.

The words on its pages were shifting, mixing, in a confusing dance of black ink. I couldn’t make heads nor tails of it. I could tell that the Godwoken were watching me, interest visible on their features. Nothing happened for a second or two. I realized that nothing was going to happen at all. I wasn’t of this world; why would its magic work with me? Was it related to Source? How would that work, if I didn’t have Source at all?

The words in the book then froze, and moved  _ off _ the page. They began to crawl on to my arms and infuse themselves into my skin. I felt my mind  _ shift _ , opening and twisting to accommodate a new ability. It was mildly surprising how little it hurt. I would have imagined literally rewriting my brain would have been more painful than it was.

My mind opened. Things clicked. The skill taught me exactly how to use my body as a battering ram, a charge that would knock anyone in my path flat on their face. It was also useful for mobility, and mobility was half of combat. A useful skill, to be sure.

I wondered what other sorts of skills and spells I could learn from these. Teleport? Fly like a bird? Summon one’s innermost demons to fight alongside them?

That last one might actually be ridiculously powerful, especially in my hands.

The paper in my hands promptly ripped itself to shreds, as if it was hacked apart with a battleaxe. I looked up and grinned at the small campfire that my companions had set up while I was learning. I had paid a little attention to the argument that had happened between the Godwoken, on whether or not they would brave the marshes in the night. They’d eventually decided to wait here and do it in the morning. Who knew what beasts prowled the dark.

I joined the circle around the campfire. Sebille, Lohse, and Fane had already begun to break bread around the open flame. We ate in silence, save the Stalfos-- he didn’t actually have the organs to process anything. There was a surprising amount of food lying around in the party’s communal packs. To my own surprise, I managed to eat almost as much as everyone else. It made sense that I was so unnaturally hungry, I supposed; I’d just spent days locked in a bloody torture chamber.

“So, Sebille, I’m curious about those tattoos on your arms,” Lohse asked, just quietly enough for me to almost not be able to hear. “Names, right?”

I took a closer look, and sure enough, several characters were scrawled in ink along the elf’s arms. Both of them, in truth. I hadn’t noticed before; either the lighting was poor, or I hadn’t exactly been looking at Sebille’s limbs. Actually, now that I was paying more attention, the glyphs were obvious. Her elven armor left her arms uncovered for some reason, as well as a bit of her torso.

“So they are,” the assassin confirmed. “My arms are gravestones, many a soul’s last rest. One day I’ll know who they are, the names on my right. And one day they’ll all be dead, the names on my left.”

“‘Who they are’? What names are on your right?”

“They… they are the ones I was forced to kill. I don’t know why. I can’t recall. But I kept their names, and with their names I will honor them,” she said, with difficulty.

“Was it the Master that forced you to kill them?” asked the songstress.

“Yes. A lizard, but not any lizard: a spectre in the flesh. A man with no name. A darker shade in shadows. If he be a demon, as the frightened claim, I will be a demon hunter. If he be a god, as the cowering claim, I will be a god slayer. Until it is over, I will be nothing but vengeance. A day on the beach I’ll be after.”

_ She will slay no god, _ God drawled.  _ Her Master is no god, as much as he makes himself out to be one. _

Lohse smiled. “Then I’ll join you when that day on the beach arrives.”

The elf grinned back, though even I could read the skepticism in her eyes. “A lovely little promise to make, but a thorny one to keep. We’ll see how bloodied you’re willing to get to pluck the one rose lost in a forest of daggers. Still, I do appreciate the sentiment.”

“And your left?”

“Those are breadcrumbs, torn and tossed aside along the long road to the Master. They are… inconsequential. Candles snuffed out by a brighter flame-- if I do say so myself.”

Lohse says something that I couldn’t quite catch, drowned out by the crackling of the fire. Fane, who was slightly closer, also looked to be listening in, silently. We shared a glance, and nodded. We wouldn’t interfere. Sebille reacts, eyebrow raising like a cat arches its back, ready to scratch.

“A touchy subject, I warn you.”

“No, no, I was just curious!” Lohse replied, somehow both cheery and solemn at exactly the same time. “Did it hurt when they placed it on you?”

“Didn’t exactly feel like a kiss,” she agreed. They must be talking about the scar. “But the true pain came after. When I lost all my own volition. I served but the Master. The Master, and none but he.”

Lohse bit her lip, clearly picking up on some level of distress that I had missed. She placed a hand gently on Sebille’s knee, which happened to be the closest thing to her, in a comforting way. “I get it. I shouldn’t have brought it up in the first place.”

“Touchy subject. I did warn you.”

In response, Lohse pulled a flask of some undefinable liquid from a well-hidden pocket and offered it to her. “Warms the heart?”

The assassin looked at the flask with surprise, but accepted it with a nod and took a long draught. After swallowing, she looked surprised.

“My word… warms the heart and everything else besides! Thank you. I needed a bit of good cheer. So cheers.”

She handed the bottle, which was now completely empty, back to Lohse. The woman laughed good-naturedly, then stepped away from the fire with a moment. When she returned, she was holding a lute like it was made of pure gold.

This was shaping up to be a pretty good night, so far.

“What‘s your poisons?” she asked, looking absolutely radiant in the firelight. “Something that you can dance to, something to set the mood…?”

“Whatever you want,” Sebille said, with a small smile on her face.

Fane didn’t respond, as he was buried in a book.

“Something ambiental, I suppose,” I shrugged. That was the style of music I was most used to.

The songstress cracked her fingers, and began to strum the lute, coaxing beauty itself from the strings. It was enchanting. It wasn’t anything like Sheik’s harp; it was more energetic, more fluid, less retrospective. Catchier, but not like Saria’s Song was.

Then she started to sing. And oh God, it was the most beautiful thing I’d heard in months.

“Come to me, the night is dark,” she sang. “Come to me, the night is long. Sing for me, I’ll sing along. Sing for me, oh sing for--”

The music cut off with no prior warning, leaving no sounds save the crackling of the flames. The lovely singing devolved into a jarring screech that lasted a few seconds, then there was utter silence. In the firelight, Lohse’s already dark eyes had shifted to an unnatural black. They almost seemed to consume the light around us. That wasn’t natural, was it?

“ _ Destroy the lute, _ ” she said, in a voice that absolutely wasn’t hers. For one, Lohse’s real voice was much too iconic to ever misconstrue. For two, the voice was distinctly male.

Robotically, the performer raised the instrument over her head and slammed it into the campfire, snapping it in two with a sad pinging noise. The darkness receded, leaving her eyes back to its ‘normal’ dark blue. As soon as that happened, Lohse put her head in her hands, and sorrow clawed at her voice.

“No! Not now! Leave me alone!”

What just happened? Sebille and Fane didn’t seem surprised, although they most certainly appeared concerned.

“Dammit,” Lohse groaned. “I hope you’re happy up there. What was the point of that?”

“Your friend upstairs really doesn’t like music, huh?” Sebille noted.

“I think it just doesn’t like it when I’m happy,” she sobbed.

“Doesn’t it worry you? That it can take control of you just like that?”

“The whole point of getting out of the Joy is to find a way to get that  _ thing _ out of me. Of course it worries me!”

“It worries me, too,” Fane commented bluntly.

“Hold on! What in the name of Fa-- what just happened?” I sputtered.

The Godwoken looked at me, like they’d forgotten that I was there. “Well… how to explain this… I’m a bit… hospitable.”

“Well, obviously,” I shot back. “You let  _ me _ into this club, of all people.”

The musician burst into laughter. “Not like that! What I mean is… look, you’ve never been a host, right? That’s because you’re like… an infested clump of leaves on the side of the road. That ain’t bad though. I’d give anything to be like you.”

_ How little she knows, _ God chimed in, like he was laughing at us.

“But I’m like a… roadside inn. Red door, flowers out front, a lovely lady beckoning you in for half price. Like a godsdamned gold-star hotel for the disembodied.”

“And Mr. Blackeyes from a few seconds ago was one of your ‘guests’?”

She nodded. “Not quite sure what it is, though. I’ll be surprised if it’s a demon. Definitely not a sprite, either.  _ Maybe _ it’s a spectre, but I wouldn’t bet money on it… anyway, it’s darker than anything that’s come before.”

Sebille gave Lohse a concerned glance. “Your eyes are looking worse,” she said.

Lohse batted her eyelashes coquettishly, over black orbs in grey sockets. “Just for you, chief.”

“So, let me get this straight,” I sighed. “I’m a universally displaced child being dragged around a deathtrap prison island by a songstress with an evil voice in her head, an ex-slave assassin, and the most pretentious Stalfos knockoff to ever exist?”

“Yeah, basically,” she confirmed with a giggle.

I suddenly had the very strange sensation of eyes on me. Someone was watching me. The hairs on my neck stood on end, and my ears twitched.

_ Ah. Nikor. He will come to you when the Godwoken are… distracted. He will give you the Mirror. Do not bring attention to it. _

I nodded imperceptibly. “Well, it’s been a helluva long day. I’m going to try and get some sleep.”

I strolled a few paces away from the campfire and laid down on the bedroll the Godwoken had supplied. I heard Fane, Lohse, and Sebille do the same. I couldn’t fall asleep for a long time. My thoughts were like a whirlpool in a mud puddle; indecipherable, murky, and unclear. One theme pervaded them all: Why? Why me? Why follow the Godwoken?

God didn’t answer. He never did, after all. In that, he was just as bad as Din, Nayru, and Farore.

**Gonna end it here!**

**RRRP:**

_ Fadedblood (AO3):  _ God’s the only person that has actually demonstrated that he can help Link with his pain. Evil’s all a matter of perspective anyways. Regarding the masks, yes, they  _ could _ be bad if they got into the wrong hands, but also it’s not like they’re leaving Fort Joy anytime soon.


End file.
